Sometimes things start coming together in an interesting and wholly unexpected way.
Item: a long-time friend of mine, Heidi, is getting married. I met her when she was 6 and I was 13, and we've managed to stay in touch these past 26 years. Recently, her boyfriend, Glenn, proposed to her on one of Los Angeles's cable TV stations. It was done as a mock call-in show, airing on Valentine's Day. The show was very touching, very clever, and very funny, especially the rap session ("Yo Heidi, Yo Heidi"). She said, "Yes."
They decided to get married at her father's farm in upstate New York. Her father is an actor, well-known both for his long-running part on As the World Turns, and for his many critically-acclaimed stage performances. He's rented out a bed and breakfast place for the guests. So I'm taking some vacation time and my family is going to New York.
Item: it's a little cheaper to fly into Philadelphia than to Newark. I visited Philadelphia some years back and liked the city. So we decided we'd poke around a little before driving up to the wedding.
My wife instantly commenced her usual systematic sweep of library materials. For those of you who haven't thought about this before, think about it now: the public library is definitely the place to start when you're planning a trip. Suzanne (my wife) amassed an amazing pile of stuff: travel guides, road maps, regional food guides, Smithsonian publications, Amtrak videos, and much, much more. In one of her books, she found out about the Franklin Institute, a museum focused on Benjamin Franklin.
Item: when my father-in-law heard that we were going to the Franklin Institute, he told us that he was just that day talking to someone at the Smithsonian. It seems my father-in-law, by way of his mother's grandfather, had come into possession of a writing table, chair, and portrait, purchased long ago at a London auction. They have been authenticated as having been the property of -- you guessed it -- Benjamin Franklin. The portrait, incidentally, is OF Franklin, done by one of his British admirers.
My father-in-law was originally interested in donating the pieces to the Smithsonian, but they hadn't shown much interest. So he made a call to the Franklin Institute, and mentioned to their staff person that his daughter and son-in-law would be out to see the place just the next week.
Item: This staff person knew who I was; she was a regular reader of the pieces I write for a national library magazine, published in New York. I'll be honest: I don't think I have all that many regular readers in Philadelphia.
Item: just the next day, the editors of that magazine invited us to swing by and go out to dinner with them. They'd heard from yet another source that we were going to be in the area.
So finally, in addition to having the great pleasure of seeing Heidi marry a good man who loves her, my wife and I will be emissaries of a Benjamin Franklin donation. Meanwhile, the family will also get to see the Liberty Bell, have a chance to roam around some lushly forested landscapes, and even be feted in the Big Apple.
Item: Benjamin Franklin, by-the-bye, formed the first subscription library in the United States. He is also famous for his Poor Richard's Almanac, one of the great publishing successes of the period. Especially now, I think of him as a sort of honorary librarian, reaching out across the centuries to spice up the vacation of another librarian.
Thanks, Ben. Now we'll see what we can do for you.
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