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2001-07-12 - 9:34 p.m.

Well ok I did it ok...I have climbed aboard this voyeuristic addiction that has claimed so many of my friends� time. Ok so it is kinda cool, and a good way to catch up with those far away.

This past Tuesday was the third installment in our 6-week summer reading program at the Library. The theme was the Middle Ages, something that I know a little bit about. Being that I am working in a library that has no branch manager the summer programming is done entirely by myself and one other part time staff member. We had decided that program for that week would be built around a blacksmithing demo. Lucky thing I've got an anvil or two. Well I thought to my self this ought to be a fairly exciting occasion. Here I get paid to do something I love doing, for a group of elementary school children. This ought to be exciting.

My Demo really started 2 days prior to the program when I realized that in order to work at my forge I would need some way of supporting my anvil and vise. So I called upon my very talented Father-in-Law to help me make a suitable workbench. Sounds easy right? Well there were a few minor setbacks. The first of which was what ever we made needed to fit in the back of my Jeep. OK right. Secondly it needed to be sturdy enough to not only hold a 150lb anvil, but it needed to take the abuse of being pounded on as well. HEHE. Things got off to a roaring start when my F-in-L arrived with 2x8's, 3/4 inch plywood, and other various sized pieces of wood. Perhaps enough to make a small house from. Needless to say when my F-in-L does something he does it right, and then some. So 2 days later and some cussing because the thing ended up being approx 1/32 out of square, and that at 11:30 at night half of 21 is11 (did I mention that he is a perfectionist) we ended up with the most kick ass portable workbench in the world. Note: it did fit in the Jeep, and could be used by circus elephants as a step stool.

So here I am, the day of the Demo. I have my forge, anvils, vise, ass kickin workbench, tools, finished projects for the kids to handle, and my leather apron. This would be the most exciting thing that these kids will see all summer. Where else can you see steel molded and shaped right before you very eyes? I would expand these city kids� horizons. I would open up doors in their minds that have been closed for years...It would be great.

So I begin my demo with a very simple question...does anyone here know what I am. Instantly hands shot up all over my crowed of eager young faces. Wow this is great...what a start, I have them already involved..."Yes! You in the red shirt, what is your answer?"

"Your a Librarian!"

Oh boy, not quite the start I was hoping for. And before I could respond, a flood of questions hit me. Have you ever dropped you anvil on a rabbit? What would happen if you put your hand in the fire? Does it hurt if you hit your hand with your hammer? My daddy has a hammer! Can you use books in the forge? Can I have your truck? And so went the first minute of my amazing smithing demo. Things worked out in the end after I got my feet back under me, I was rewarded with the ohhs and ahhs as I brought my steel to temp exceeding 1400 degrees, and turned ordinary bars of steel into hooks and hangers of assorted types. When all was said and done I think I did indeed touch one or two minds in that group, but in the long run I believe it was me that got the most out of that demo. To be taken off guard by questions that you thought you had answers to, to see kids as their eyes open wide in disbelief as you twist metal as if you were superman, or to hear kids days later still talking about blacksmithing left me with a kinda warm fuzzy feeling. That was until I got the e-mail asking if I would be available to do a similar demo for all of the libraries in the system...

Hehe, I thought it a joke when I started down this library path, but By Crom, Thanks to blacksmithing Demo and a unit on the Middle Ages that I helped put together, I don�t think I'll ever shake this Conan the Librarian thing now.

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