Yesterday I felt pretty cool. Woodward and Bernstein cool. No, I wasn’t talking to some leak in the Jordan administration about how he bugged Walt Eiler’s offices. Because I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen.

No, I was at the Fayetteville Public Library, doing some research on my family history. I knew that Lewis “Hot” Johnson (my grandfather) married Christine Smith (my grandmother) on June 20th, 1959 (that’s 50 years ago this Saturday, fool). I went up to the information desk on the second floor and told a librarian that. She took me over to the microfilm readers, and together, we searched through 3 weeks worth of papers (found her on July 6th). Printing from the manual readers didn’t work very well, so they put me on the computers. Within just a few minutes I was able to scan the image at a high resolution and upload it to my flash drive. I put it on my computer, photoshopped the dust out, and now I have an excellent anniversary present for them.

Fayetteville Public Library

I would have been lost without the librarians. 3 helped me, overall. And on my way back downstairs, I saw the children’s librarian and realized that she looked just the same as in my memories of grade school. Just the other day, the staff of the children’s library helped me out. I wanted to read my nephew my favorite picture book, but I couldn’t remember the title. I described the plot to them, and they all racked their brains for the title, and called my cell phone within the hour.

So for those of you who’ve been in the area all your lives, think what an excellent Father’s day present you can give your dad. Find his birth announcement, or your parent’s wedding announcement. The awesome librarians can help you. Even if you don’t need to do microfilm research, they’re all really helpful, so make sure to go up and talk to them.