Director's Blog

Forward with Arlington's History: A Mid-Term Task Force Report

Published: September 14, 2015

The Arlington History Task Force, made up of County staff and citizen volunteers, continues to map out the best strategy for preserving our history.

The new Mid-Term Report [pdf] toward a 5-year plan lays out the group’s ideas for capturing, digitally storing and sharing both official documents and those elements of personal stories that will have essential value to future generations.

The goal is to be ready for Arlington’s official centennial as a County in 2020.

A final Task Force report will be issued this coming January so please take a look and let us know what you think in the comments section below. Thanks.

40 Years Since Saigon Fell

Published: April 30, 2015

Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, was captured April 30, 1975 as the United States pulled out its remaining diplomats and military personnel in the lost fight against the the communist north.

Photos of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial by Library Director Diane Kresh

Director’s Blog: The Cookie Chronicles

Published: January 22, 2015

If the sign-up sheets haven’t yet begun circulating in your office, don’t fret. They will soon.

The annual Girl Scout retail juggernaut is underway, spinning thousands of signatures into hundreds of millions of dollars in roughly six weeks’ time, a pace and margin of profit that is the envy of many CEOs.

black and white photo of an Arlington Girl Scout troop

Julia Veitch Thomas with Arlington Girl Scout troop. She started the Girl Scouts in Arlington and Alexandria County. Photo circa 1920. Courtesy of Johnathan Thomas.

What began in 1917 as a modest troop fundraiser in Merle Haggard’s Muskogee, Okla. has become both a model of entrepreneurship and training program in “Life Skills 101.”

According to the Girl Scouts, young girls and women learn five basic skills: “goal setting, decision making, money management [boxes are priced at $4 each], people skills, and business ethics.” And consistent with the times we live in, cookie sales in at least two national councils–Houston and Minneapolis–have gone mobile.

Girls Scouts and their moms have not baked cookies in decades, even though an enterprising troop leader in Chicago created an inexpensive cookie recipe in the 1920s.

Two companies, Little Brownie Bakers, a subsidiary of Keebler, and ABC Bakers, are licensed to bake the cookies and may choose to produce among eight varieties, three of which–Thin Mints, Trefoils, and Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies–are mandatory. And there is some autonomy among troop councils as to which varieties they sell (provided they sell “The Big Three”), and which names they use: “Samoas” aka “Caramel deLites.”

Other useful bytes of information about cookies:

they have little or no trans fat and no preservatives or artificial flavors
vegan “Thin Mints” are now available
Little Brownie Bakers does not use any high fructose syrup in its cookies
the packaging is sustainable.

Not all adjustments to the nutritional value of the cookies, however, have succeeded. For example, low-fat and sugar-free varieties didn’t sell well and are no longer produced. They are cookies, after all. And some varieties, “Snaps,” an iced oatmeal raisin cookie; “Double Dutch,” a double chocolate; and my own fleeting favorite, “Dulce de Leche,” will never see the inside of a cookie jar or sack lunch again.

That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

I was a Girl Scout in Arlington in the mid-1960s, and was one of the legions of young girls selling cookies. In those days, the operation was pretty low-tech. I would come home from school, change into my uniform, and hit the houses in my neighborhood unaccompanied (something I cannot imagine a Scout doing today), lugging my cardboard carton of 12 boxes of the Big Three. No driving around with a parent, no meet-ups with other scouts and mothers to sell cookies in front of a grocery store or library, no sign-ups sheets carried by my father to his office. Just me, my carton and my sales pitch.

To the list of life skills that cookie selling teaches, I would add: self–confidence; the ability to look an adult in the eye; perseverance (I refused to quit going door-to-door until every box was sold); the value of team work and how achieving something individually (selling my share) contributes to the greater good (troop camping trips).

In fact, it’s the camping trips I most remember from my years as a Girl Scout–the fun of being outdoors and hiking, telling ghost stories and sleeping in huge canvas tents with wooden floors. And cooking foil-wrapped dinners.

Most people have tried their hand at making “S’mores,” the campfire confection first recorded in “Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts” (1927). While S’mores are great, I prefer the campfire treat favored by my troop: a red apple (Fuji or Gala work best), cored and filled with the candy “Red Hots,” wrapped in foil and baked over a fire. Sweet, cinnamony, spicy, nutritious (well, sort of) and delicious.

For that treat alone, I would turn back the clock.

————————————————————————

The author, top row, second from right.

Were you a Girl Scout? Have a tale to add to “Cookie Chronicles”?

Please do so in the comments section below.

Your Annual 2014 “Too Cool for Yule Blog” Mix

Published: December 4, 2014

This “Frozen” time of the year we bring you good cheer…
And queued a set of tunes
you’re just longing to hear.

There are songs to make you happy
and songs to make you dance.
Each lovingly selected by mood
or happenstance.

An unusual mix of carols and hits
We searched across genres to find out what fits.
You’ll find Elvis and Benny, Sufjan (Sufjan?)
and Kay.
We’ve made it easy — you just hit play.

Some pickin’, some new wavin’,
some ballading, some strumming
A swell bunch of cançons traditionals
to get you all humming.

In this season of darkness, remember the light,
that shines bright within each of us and holds back the night.

From our “house” to your house,
we wish you the best.

And thank you for being our
Most Honored Guests.

The “Don’t Touch That Dial” Playlist 2014

Find the complete 2014 list in Spotify

Clausula (Domino) – Boston Camerata

Carol of the Bells – John Fahey

Menorah Song – New York City Chanukah Ensemble

December – Kay Starr

Winter Weather – Peggy Lee with Benny Goodman

Orchestra

Santa Bring My Baby Back (to Me) – Elvis Presley

Rock and Roll Christmas – George Thorogood and the Destroyers

‘Zat You Santa Clause – Dr. Teeth from “The Muppets: A Green and Red Christmas”

Deck the Halls with Boston Charlie – Lambert, Hendricks & Ross

Let It Snow – Mandolin Christmas Music

Fum, Fum, Fum

Cançons Traditionals Harmonitzades per a Cor a Capella

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses

Sleigh Ride – The Ronettes

Silver Bells – Merengue Musicos de Navidad

God Bless the Child – Lou Rawls

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Diana Krall

Wexford Carol – Indiana Brass

Aud Lang Syne – Sufjan Stevens

This Little Light of Mine – Sweet Honey in the Rock

Bonus Track: Let it Go from “Frozen” – Idina Menzel

Bonus Track: Hanukkah in Santa Monica – Tom Lehrer

Bonus Track: Can I Interest You in Hannukkah – Stewart & Colbert

Got your own list or song suggestion?

Please share with a comment below.

Have your own photos to share from holiday’s past and present? Please post them on the Library Facebook page.

Yule Blogs past: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

All photos by Diane Kresh (except Kay Starr cover)

Director’s Blog: Vital Signs

Published: June 6, 2014

“We are Pride”

In celebration of Pride Month, Director’s Blog is featuring “Vital Signs,” a collection of my photographs chronicling the LGBT Movement over the last several years.

From a plaque commemorating the riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York City in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, to the National Equality March on Oct. 11, 2009 to the oral arguments and landmark Supreme Court decisions handed down on June 26, 2013 and the victory parade in New York City five days later.

Every month is pride month in Arlington Public Library for we welcome, respect and accept all comers.

Happy Pride.

Explore the entire Vital Signs collection on Flickr

Director’s Blog: Class of 2014

Published: May 13, 2014

Class of 2014

A couple of events–one past and one pending–have me engaged in a fair amount of self-reflection. First: the past event. Over the weekend, I attended the college graduation of my youngest son Nathaniel, a weekend filled with pageantry and tears (mine), memorialized by iPhone pics and Facebook posts.

And in a few weeks, I will celebrate my 60th birthday, aka the pending event. A fact I find both irrefutable and troubling.

If you are anywhere close to this age, you’ll know that I grew up in an era–the 1960’s–when we were told never to trust anyone over the age of 30, forever branding youth with favor and fortune, a specialness that time couldn’t or wouldn’t taint. Except it did.

So here I am staring down number 60–a number I expected to reach thanks to good genes but did not expect to affect me very much. Except it does. So I’ve been thinking a lot about why that is and may have found the answer at my son’s graduation.

One of the most ritualistic of William & Mary’s commencement rituals occurs on Sunday, when the graduating seniors-–1300 of them this year – take their final walk as students across campus. The walk begins at the venerable Wren Building on “old campus” and wends its way to William & Mary Hall.

Roughly two thirds of the way, the students cross a wooden footbridge–Crim Dell Bridge –before they begin a final ascent through the woods to the Hall and their waiting families and friends. Apart from its picturesque setting which has made it the stuff of urban legends, the bridge symbolized to me a rite of passage as groups of seniors-cum-graduates joked and jostled their way across, posed for selfies, waved to distant cameras, and completed their journeys from childhood to adulthood.

The rest of the afternoon offered the usual in commencement fare with the usual mix of solemnity, jocularity and musicality, the latter courtesy of a fine William & Mary choir (I am partial to choral groups of all types). Some speeches dazzled and some humbled as each sounded the virtues of service, honor, purpose and community. Students were urged not to hold themselves back, to take their places in the world, to imagine what they could accomplish if they weren’t afraid.

In other words, calls to action to make a difference and change the world made to a group of young men and women who merely hours before one still thought of as… well… children.

Much is expected of the young and often it seems, not much of the old. Or what we commonly think of as old. Sixty usually qualifies. And pop culture–movies, television, and advertising–hasn’t helped. While it’s true that attitudes toward aging are changing (thanks to AARP, 50 is the new black), the advance of old age is generally not viewed as desirable and age discrimination, sadly, is alive and well.

What I discovered this past weekend, however, is that like much of life, it all boils down to choice. And like the newly minted graduates, I, too have choices. I can cross the bridge and embrace 60 and this next phase of my life full on with excitement and anticipation of the unknown or I can start to fold the tents, an option that is neither appealing nor likely.

One ritual I expected to experience over the weekend but didn’t is the graduation cap toss, emblematic of new beginnings. William & Mary, perhaps bowing to changing times and concerns for student safety (the corners of the mortarboard apparently hurt if they land on you) opted instead to launch several large green and gold (school colors) beach balls for the graduates to bat around before the ceremony came to its formal close.

Having no cap (or gown, for that matter), I’ll recall instead the toss of a famous knitted black and turquoise beret on the evening of Sept. 19, 1970.

I’m going to make it after all.

A Birthday Tale to Tell

Published: January 6, 2014

The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll Would Be 79 this Wednesday

Here’s a double trouble playlist, with a hit from the man himself and an alternative from pretenders to/contenders for the throne.

Mr. P makes his annual appearance in Central Library.

Elvis Presley – “That’s All Right” [Spotify/YouTube]

Howlin’ Wolf – “That’s All Right” [Spotify/YouTube]

Elvis Presley – “Mystery Train” [Spotify/YouTube]

Neil Young – “Mystery Train” [Spotify/YouTube]

Elvis Presley – “Blue Suede Shoes” [Spotify/YouTube]

Carl Perkins – “Blue Suede Shoes” – [Spotify/YouTube]

Elvis Presley – “Don’t Be Cruel” [Spotify/YouTube]

Cheap Trick – “Don’t Be Cruel” [Spotify/YouTube]

Mr. P is comfortable in the 782.42166 section. Check out the definitive two-part Guralnick bio.

Elvis Presley – “Return to Sender” [Spotify/YouTube]

Rod Stewart with Booker T. & The MG’s – “Return To Sender” [Spotify/YouTube]

Elvis Presley – “Unchained Melody” [Spotify/YouTube]

The Righteous Brothers – “Unchained Melody” [Spotify/YouTube]

Elvis Presley – “Funny How Time Slips Away” [Spotify/YouTube]

Al Green – “Funny How Time Slips Away” [Spotify/YouTube]

Elvis Presley – “Heartbreak Hotel” [Spotify/YouTube]

Willie Nelson with Leon Russell – “Heartbreak Hotel” – [Spotify/YouTube]

Elvis Presley – “Can’t Help Falling in Love” [Spotify/YouTube]

Dead Moon – “Can’t Help Falling in Love” [Spotify/YouTube]

Elvis Presley – “Suspicious Minds” [Spotify/YouTube]

Fine Young Cannibals – “Suspicious Minds” [Spotify/YouTube]

And while you might not be able to rent a movie house just for yourself, let Jim Jarmusch and an iconic cast take you on the “Mystery Train” to Memphis, where you still can find some room down at the end of lonely street.

Not a bad way to celebrate a birthday.

The Annual Yule Blog: Rocking, Swinging Through the Holidays with APL

Published: December 5, 2013

Our Sixth Annual Yule Blog

The month of December is finally here

The time of the season we bring you good cheer.

The tunes that we list we hope will amuse

So relax take a listen… you

have nothing to lose.

Pick from bebop and pop

Or country and rock;

there’s piano and brass

plus a little cool jazz.

From our “house” to yours, we wish you the best

And thank you for being our most honored guests.

The “Don’t Touch That Dial” Playlist 2013

Ella Fitzgerald – “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Julie London – “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Paul Simon – “Getting Ready For Christmas Day” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Daryl Hall & John Oates – “Jingle Bell Rock” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

The Ronettes – “Frosty the Snowman” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Kurt Elling – “Cool Yule” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Carrie Underwood – “Do You Hear What I Hear” Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Emmylou Harris – “The First Noel” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Sufjan Stevens – “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

John Fahey – “We Three Kings Of Orient Are” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Watersons – “Here We Come A-Wassailing” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

The Albion Band – “While Sheperds Watched” (Spotify/Amazon)

Jack Jezzro – Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! (Spotify/Amazon)

Marian McPartland – “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” (Spotify/Amazon)

Charlie Parker – “White Christmas” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Little Eva and Big Dee Irwin – “I Wish You A Merry Christmas” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark – “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Brenda Lee – “I’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Chuck Berry – “Merry Christmas Baby” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Grant Green – “My Favorite Things” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Fairport Convention – “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

Pittsburgh Symphony Brass – “Wexford Carol” (Spotify/Amazon/YouTube)

(All photos by Diane Kresh 2013)

Got your own list? Share it with a comment below.

Yule Blogs past: 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012

Director's Blog: Giving Thanks for Your ABBIEs Support

Published: November 21, 2013

Giving Thanks

As you may have heard, for the second straight year Arlington Public Library has won “Best Customer Service” and “Best Family Friendly Spot” in Arlington’s Best Business Awards, better known as the ABBIEs. Those were the two categories in which we qualified and the Library was the only government/non-profit organization contending in them.

I know how hard the Library staff and volunteers work at getting it right for our customers. This kind of feedback from the public shows those efforts make a difference.

Many thanks to you for supporting Arlington Public Library. And many thanks to the Library staff and volunteers for doing what they do. It truly makes a difference.

Best Thanksgiving wishes to you and yours.

Our Fifth Annual "Too Cool for Yule Blog"

Published: December 3, 2012

The classified confetti from Macy’s parade is now gone.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday, too.
It’s that most wonderful time of the year
when holiday tunes reappear
and the sounding joys repeat on and on.

You’re sure to find something new.
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) by U2?
Acid rock, jazz, classical, neo-prog?
Cementing our rep as a hip library blog.

The playlist lasts about an hour.
So grab a cuppa somethin’; a spot by the fire.
And don’t touch that dial.
Relax; crack a smile.
And jingle, juke and jive for a while.

As you click, spin or play your way into the holidaze
consider posting a comment below with YOUR seasonal faves.
Memories of Hanukah? Eid? Kwanzaa?
Each is welcome in this seasonal bonanza.

APL has had a wonderful year and for that we thank all of you.
We wish you joy and good cheer and a bright new year, too.