Tinfoil + Raccoon: Franchising My Web: The La Crosse Posse

One of the things I've been most sad about losing in this move is my network of friends, family and acquaintances. A person accumulates a lot of those by staying in one place for 40 years. Any given day at work, I'm able to stop and chat with patrons who I know not just from the library, but from my life. There's James, who I met in 1979 when I went to hang out with his younger brother and sister, Thomas and Jean, from high school speech team. He now comes in fairly often with his toddler son. James' bandmates Scott and Gary, who I met in the late 80s and lived next door to. Those guys are library monsters!

Then there's Uncle Peter. He's my girls' uncle, my ex-brother-in-law and my still-friend. I met the girls' dad through him and his sister Abby (it was Abby who introduced me to Thomas and Jean, mentioned above). Uncle Peter comes in once or twice a week to stock up on books and movies, and always stops by the desk to chat. One day my cousin Linda, who lives 70 miles away and who I normally only see at Thanksgiving, came up to the desk. She was in town to see her daughter who works across the street at City Hall. A few years ago, I became friends with the humor/human interest columnist for the local paper. It didn't take long to discover that he was good pals with one of my best friends in high school. You get the picture...it's an impossible web to untangle.

Rather than snipping the edges of that web and starting a new one, I've already got a thread running between here and La Crosse. When I mentioned to a favorite library patron that I was heading to La Crosse, he emailed his sister-in-law there and said I'd be moving up. She emailed me out of the blue and has been an invaluable, friendly source of information. Of course, there's my friend Marcee and her family, who moved from here to Wisconsin about five years ago. Her proximity to La Crosse is what prompted me to apply for the job in the first place.

This past weekend, when Juniorina and I went up to scout out housing and neighborhoods, my new web got a good jump start. We spent all day Saturday driving around with a peach of a Realtor. We saw stuff that we liked, and got a good feel for the layout of the town. But, I woke up Sunday morning feeling unsatisfied with what I'd seen the day before. So, I went out driving myself. On a whim, I decided to drive by a house I'd crossed off my list without having looked at it. When I got to the right block, I found another house a few doors down that was for sale. I could tell that it was out of my price range, but approached a woman on her front porch to ask about it. She chatted readily and called down to another neighbor who was sweeping the sidewalk in front of his house. Pretty soon, his wife came out, and I was learning all about the neighborhood, the school system, and the house I'd come to see.

When I mentioned I was coming to work at the library, the guy asked me if I knew Dave, the library's IT guy. In a short time, I learned that the guy I was talking to volunteered at the library for game nights, was an IT guy for Chileda, the autism resource center in town, and a barbecue/smoking maniac. He even invited me to join a social group on MySpace. He and the first woman were bickering good- naturedly, and the whole thing seemed so....neighborly. At that point, I didn't much care what the house looked like inside. I felt like I'd found where I belonged.

I called my Realtor, apologized for bothering her on a Sunday morning, and asked if we could see the house. She arranged it while I went back to check out of the hotel and get Juniorina. When I got back, Juniorina and I explored the yard, and met the next-door neighbor, a woman working in her garden. From her, I learned more about the house and the community and she shared that she was in a club with two of my new colleagues, one of whom lived nearby. She said she'd be delighted to have another gardener next door.

As soon as the Realtor unlocked the door, Juniorina and I had a mutual and instantaneous love for the house, mouthing "wow" over and over again. Mind you, this was just supposed to be a scouting mission, but after ten minutes I found myself calling Mr. Raccoon to tell him that I was prepared to make an offer. He could tell by my voice that This Was The One, and waived his right to make an in-person inspection.

So, now I'm in the stomach-churning process of offering and applying and selling. It's not a certain thing that this house will work out for us. Come May 28 we'll have some place to lay our heads. But, more importantly, we've got a small and growing posse. What I've learned is that my network here in B-N isn't strictly the result of my lengthy tenure. I've worked at building and maintaining the network, and don't think it will take long before I can walk through La Crosse PL without stopping to chat with a familiar face.