For the first few months after I switched branches to my current library branch a couple of years ago, I paid a lot of attention to the patron names and addresses at check-out so I could learn the regulars names and get a feel for their distribution in the neighborhood. A group of pre-teen boys all had the same address on a street I use for my commute home. I told them I went by their house nearly every day. “Just look for a guy on a bike with flashing lights.”

Of course they didn’t believe me that

• a white guy would be on their street,
• that he’d be on a bicycle, and
• that it would be at night.

Since then, nearly every night when I make the turn to their street, shouts of “Hey library guy!” come from the porch. I yell back and wave. It’s like having my own cheering section on the Tour or something. I miss it when they’re not there. Ordinarily I use a longer route to work, but one afternoon I was running late and took that route instead. As I came past their house, there they were on the porch. “Hey library guy, stop, stop, stop!”

This was different.

So I drop anchor and circle back on the sidewalk to their house. Thinking there’s some sort of emergency, I asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Can you take our movies back?”

I waited while they found all the DVDs—one proved to be elusive—and had the boys stuff them in my panniers. Then I rode the rest of the way to work.

Yes, we’re a full-service library!

Postscript: They've since moved. I really miss them.