of the public library.
We're all kind of friends of the library, but the official friend of the public library is Autumn Lattimore.
Hi, Autumn.
How are you?
Good morning, Don.
And I have to give you a belated happy birthday.
Oh, that's OK.
Thank you very much.
You're
welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Where's the cake?
Yeah.
Well, it's in the parking
lot.
OK.
We'll go get it a little later.
OK.
You had some big doings in your family, you just told me.
We did.
My daughter, whose name is Winter.
Yes.
Don't laugh.
winter follows autumn she uh graduated and we had prom of course the wonderful we're seeing from prom and she's headed tomorrow to uh regionals for shot put so
we'll see what happens she can remind her husband someday now before you say no to this remember i was the shot putter
And this could hurt.
There you go.
So think carefully before you do anything stupid.
You got it.
You got it.
My graduation, my diploma is somewhere in a landfill.
My mother, when she moved from her house, I mean, she was there.
She was there for almost 50 years in the house.
And she decided they were moving.
Well, they were moving.
They, you know, retired.
They were moving to Florida.
And she threw everything out.
And my brother said, you better get over here, the dumpster's here.
And meanwhile, I'm sitting here in Racine, and that's on Long Island.
And he said, mom's throwing everything out.
She says, everything's going in the dumpster.
I'm grabbing my medical books out of here.
I said, do you see anything that belongs to me?
No, it's just covered.
She just keeps dumping and dumping and dumping.
So I said to her, why did you throw out my high school diploma?
She goes, if it was important to you, you would have taken it with you.
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
She threw out a whole bunch of stuff.
My Beatles ticket stubs.
Oh.
From my Beatles concert I went to in 1965.
She said, if it was important, you would have taken them with you.
Oh, boy.
Mom, I didn't know you were going to have, you know, a burning pits thing going on.
That's a
tough one.
That's a tough
one.
And she said, if it was important, you would have taken it with you.
Obviously, it wasn't that important.
Oh, I don't know that she's wrong.
Thank you.
I was expecting a little sympathy.
No, sorry.
I'm not much better.
I've got too much junk, so I get it.
So what's the Friends of the Public Library?
The Friends Group is a specific advocacy group.
We sit beside the library, we support the library, and we raise funds for wonderful library programming, largely focused on families and youth.
So we...
use donations from our patrons and all different types of folks to raise those funds with our book sales and our book teak and as well as our memberships.
So we encourage everyone to be a member.
Entry level membership is $15 a year.
Very reasonable.
That's lesson going out to culvers.
There you go.
So how do you become a member?
You can go to
We're seeing library.info and you just look for friends and we are right there.
You will take PayPal or credit card.
It's very easy.
You get a lovely membership card.
We give you a gift that you can pick up at the front desk of the library.
You can get free books every month, and you get notice for all of our wonderful sales and events that go on throughout the year.
Just hope your mother doesn't throw out your membership card when she moves.
Let's hope not.
Let's hope not.
OK, so we have a couple of topics we need to talk about.
Donation Day, which is coming up June, I can't believe June 7th is next week.
It's next Saturday.
Yes.
So Donation Day is where we ask.
You, the public, whatever you've got, those books, games, puzzles, records, DVDs, what else, CDs, comic books, anything you want to get rid of.
from a literary and cozy hobby point.
Why do people want to
get rid of their DVDs?
I'm a big DVD collector in Blu-rays.
I still collect them.
Blu-rays?
Yep, we get those occasionally.
I don't know why people get rid of this.
What do you want to see in that movie?
Yeah, well... Now you're going to have to pay to stream it.
This way you get to see it for free.
Right,
but you've got to find the technology that'll play it.
A DVD player.
Well, sometimes those break.
Well, everything breaks.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Oh, no, no, no.
I'll go down there.
Now, Donation Day, so when's the sale?
The Donation Day is on the 7th from 11 to 3.
And the sale will be this fall.
So we go through, we curate, we price.
We had an incredible Donation Day this past spring.
and an incredible sale.
We just got depleted of so much of our inventory.
So we need you all to come out and give us a good amount of donations.
You didn't see my high school diploma, don't you?
No, I
did not.
You didn't believe you, she threw that
out?
Yeah.
You're not gonna, she's not gonna live that one down.
No, I'm not.
You know, I said to her once, this is years later, and I, she, you can never forget about this.
No, I'm never gonna forget about it.
There's no proof I graduated high school.
You threw it out.
She goes, it's not a big deal.
We know you graduated.
Yeah, I know, but, you know, I want to have it on the wall.
So if it meant a lot to you, you would have taken
it with you
and my beetle ticker stubs, too.
Color Owl World, a summer reading program for kids and adults.
Yes, it's a wonderful program that the Friends is funding through, again, our donations that we receive.
It actually is kicking off on the same day, on the 7th, and it's where you can create art and you can get started on a reading challenge and also get ready for just summer fun.
You can drop in at any time during open hours and enjoy all kinds of activities.
celebrate reading.
And then there's a special portion to the Color Our World, which is steam-based.
It's a challenge.
And I bet you want to know what that means.
Of course I want to know.
OK.
Well, that means that we actually work with the science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.
as a challenge where learners of all ages can earn points by completing different activities and attending programs and checking out ebooks and writing reviews related to steam.
So when you earn enough points, you can actually stop into the innovation lab up on the second floor and you can get your completion prize.
So it's
a pretty cool program.
My wife reads to me and she's a great reader and we will pick a book.
And right now we're reading Bob Barry.
He was a big famous DJ in Milwaukee, wrote a book, and it's really good.
And when we go on road trips, she reads to me in the car, and she reads to me at night before we go to bed.
You are so spoiled.
Well, you know what?
And she's a good reader.
She doesn't stumble.
Does it go, uh-uh-uh-uh?
Did I stutter?
You are so
spoiled, Don.
Yeah, so she's very good.
So she reads to me while we're sleeping.
I love it.
You know, before we go to bed at night.
And I love it.
She reads.
You got a great voice for reading.
Good.
And I don't have to read.
You are a lucky man.
I know.
This is everything in the world I wanted.
I got.
Hey, that's saying something.
You know, I remember when I was going to look at the library, we had these little tiny chairs and they used to put them in a semicircle.
I'm one of the librarians just to read a book.
And it was a simple book with like three words on each page.
And they show you the picture.
They go, you know,
But, you know, if you think back to some of these early books, like C Sally, C Dick, C Jane, I mean, you see, and there's like four words on in the entire book and somebody published it.
Right.
Wow, I could do that.
I know.
I know.
It was a different time.
It was a different time.
And I got to read Harry Potter 600 pages.
You know, for some reason, I seem to remember that story time, the concept of story time was started in Racine.
I need to go back and kind of Google that.
But for some reason, that was some piece of trivia that's in my head.
So we need to look that one up.
I got one for you here.
This is the, you know, the Scripps spelling bee challenge.
Oh, yeah.
That's today.
This is a big nationwide.
Don't ask me to
spell it on.
This is a big, giant, nationwide spelling bee.
I know, it's pretty cool, too.
And I got it here.
Hold on, some of the words are real simple.
Oh, no, they're not.
Oh, yeah, they are.
Hold on.
Hold on, I think I'll find it here.
All right, the Scripps Spelling Bee Challenge.
By the way, it's called the bee originally because the newspaper there...
is the Sacramento
Bee.
And that's why it's called the Spelling Bee.
Love it.
That's where they get Scripps Howard, which owns I think channel 12 in Milwaukee, owns the rights to that.
So anyway, here are the words that people, Americans, Google the most.
Some of them pretty easy.
Congratulations.
Now, I think the D and the T swear everybody up.
Absolutely.
I was passing.
I won't mention that embarrassed the hotel, but there's a hotel here in town and I said congratulations graduating seniors and they spelled it with a D on the marquee.
Yeah, it was right.
Appreciation.
What would be the problem with that one?
Hmm.
Appreciation.
That seems pretty easy.
One, two, maybe one less piece.
I don't know.
I don't
know.
Florida.
Florida.
How do you screw that up?
I don't know.
Amazing.
No way.
But here's the one I couldn't spell.
Are you ready?
I'm ready.
Camouflage.
Ooh.
These kids probably have no problem with it.
Yeah.
Camouflage.
I tried to do it even after I saw it how it was spelled.
It's one of those weird.
Yeah.
Just for the record, it's C-A-M-O-U-F-L-A-G-E.
I would never have got that in a million years.
I would have
left out a U somewhere.
I would have left that half the letters to camouflage.
Boy, that's a total... What would we do without Google?
These kids get harder words than that.
Oh, yeah.
And I don't know how they... How do you practice for that?
Just read the dictionary?
I mean...
I think you practice for a spelling.
It could be millions of words.
And they would say, can I have the definition, please?
And they give the definition.
Like, that's going to help.
Can you use it in the sentence, please?
They're
buying time.
That's what I think they're doing.
Buying time.
I think they're trying to use it.
Smart, smart young people.
Yeah, they are smart.
And these kids are like, you know, 11, 12 years old in there.
You know how to spell camouflage.
OK, our next program, the summer.
Let's see what I wrote here, Mike.
I need to get them.
Summer scares.
Summer scares, yes.
Well, we love the Summer Scares program.
This is allowing us all to enjoy all the things that are dark and spooky in the summer, you know, sitting around the campfire and having a good ghost story.
This is the fifth anniversary of Summer Scares, so.
I'm scared
thinking
about
it.
I'll bring back memories, that's why.
Yeah, there you go, see?
And you can join the library and we'll be having book discussions and crafts that are inspired by the readings, and then scary movie nights.
So if you dare to come, I think you'll have a great time.
Boy, do you remember any summer scares when you were growing up?
Oh, yeah.
We used to hang around the telephone pole at night.
Ah, yes.
Because there was a light at the top of the pole.
Of course.
And we used to sit there on the curb making up stories.
And one of them was there was a house on the next block up a few blocks.
There always is
a house somewhere.
And they said, in the back window, there's an old woman who died.
Right.
And her hand is still in the window.
And I'm telling my father this thing.
Keep in mind, I was probably about 18, 19 years old.
No, I was probably about 9, 10 years old, 9 years old.
Yeah.
And I said, she's dead.
Her hand is in the window.
She's just like, she was waving and it just froze.
She's got rigor mortis.
It's frozen in the window.
My father said this and her hand is not.
I said, it is.
So we were going out to eat.
My father said, where's the house?
So we pulled in to the house and it wasn't her house, but he had to walk through the backyard of the other has to see her back of their window.
And he goes, that's not a hand.
That's a flower.
And so he took me back there and I said, son of a gun, there's a flower.
What do you know about that?
But every night, the old lady's hand is still there in the window.
That's pretty funny.
And we were afraid to go see it.
Turns out it was a flower.
Thanks, Dad, for wrecking my childhood memories.
What are some of yours?
Well, I have a similar thing where my grandmother lived on a street, and we lived with her for a while.
And there was a pretty scary house.
And there was a strange man who kind of went in and out of the house and lived there.
And we had all kinds of...
stories about him.
Probably a nice guy, but you decided to fill up.
Yeah, we had
all kinds of names, Beef Stew Jack and Beef Stew Jack.
Beef Stew Jack because he one day had like a Hormel Beef Stew, you know, can that fell out of his bag one day and we called him Beef Stew Jack.
Where was this?
This is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah.
I think Beef Stew is still
around.
Highly doubt it
but tonight you're gonna have a nightmare about beef stew jack
Well, you know, I will tell you it's a national phenomena our love for horror and Summer the seasonal summer screams if you will the summer scares program is actually a national program that's that's sponsored by the horror writers Association, so we're excited to be in partnership with them and to again sponsor the summer scares here in receipt
When
you go out in the hallway there, we just won the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Award for Best Interview.
Congratulations.
And the interview I did was with Rory Graves, who wrote a book called Haunted Racine.
There you go.
And she was telling some stories.
And the building she was telling it, they're still there.
You could go, one of them was about a school.
This is, you know, one of the St.
Luke's is on 14th Street.
Yes,
yes.
If you keep going west,
You'll see an old school.
It's huge, huge.
The kid, it was built on the side of a cemetery.
Oh, that does
not bode well.
And it's like poltergeist, you know, when they said, it didn't move the grave.
Kids were digging up bones.
No
way.
People's bones and stuff.
Oh, that's freaky.
No, no.
It's the cover of her book.
Now, she put a light on one of the windows, but it's right there.
There's a place on Main Street here that's got haunted stories.
And she was telling these stories.
Any old town.
And I don't know if they're not true.
Yeah,
any old town, though, you're going to have that.
You can just look at some of those places and say, I know there's some ghosts that live there.
Come on.
Yeah, it's just the way of the world.
Now I'm afraid to go out.
It's daylight.
You never know.
This building is going to be 100 years old pretty soon.
How cool is that?
Who knows?
I'm not the building, the radio station.
The building's from the 50s, but still.
All right, well, it's old enough.
My house is over 100 years old, and we had to have a wall replaced.
And I said, let's, they took out, remember the old slats and stuff.
Oh
yeah, for sure.
So they took out the wall.
And I wanted to look inside to see if anything's in there.
No,
nothing was in there.
I thought because an old sea captain owned our house.
And I thought, well, maybe there's something in it.
Right.
And I said, let me go to the
newspaper or something.
Well, I want to go to the store like a party store and buy some plastic skeleton and throw them in the wood.
No.
So 50, 60 years from now when they opened up, there's the skeleton laying in there.
That's not right.
I won't be around for the scare and the scream.
But it was, you know, that's
not
right.
Pick out one more thing on the list here.
We have time
for one more thing.
Wow.
Well, I want to.
Just do a nice push for our seed library.
We have an incredible seed library is a wonderful, wonderful asset to our area.
You can come in and there's a incredible list or excuse me, a credible number of drawers filled with different seeds by packet by special area, vegetable.
flowers, you name it, and you can come and just get seeds to a plethora of seeds exactly to start your garden or to start your flowers.
And just based on our weather, you probably could still start at this point, right?
So
my wife started.
Yeah, she started already.
She's box gardens.
We love the Seed Library.
Yeah.
OK, quick review.
Donation Day is coming up June 7th.
June 7th.
Make a donation, folks.
DVDs, Blu-rays, whatever you got later on out.
Just come to the
front and we will help you.
The friends will help you
unload your car.
And make sure they're in decent condition.
Absolutely.
Don't bring a book where the pages are all torn out.
Right, or moldy.
Yeah, no, we don't want that.
Come on, guys.
Color Our World, the summer reading program for kids and adults kicks in.
That's
on June 1st, it starts.
June 1st,
June
1st, okay.
Yeah, we start soon.
And here's the one I'm afraid of.
I'm
sorry, that's June 7th.
Summer Scare starts June 1st.
Yeah, June 1st.
Summer Scare, that's one I'm afraid to mention.
And that takes place.
Is that only what ages?
That starts with teens through adults.
Yeah.
And you really get scary, huh?
We're talking like, you know, sixth grade and above.
We get scary.
What time do you do it at night?
Well, I think it's all day.
Actually, so go to RacineLibrary.info and there's a whole schedule of all the different activities.
And if people want to join Friends of the Library?
Also, RacineLibrary.info, $15 for your basic membership.
And we always can go higher and you'll get a lovely gift for being a member of the Friends.
Plus, you get letters from me every once in a while.
That's even more special.
That's the price of admission right there.
There you go.
And nobody will ever throw those out.
No, they will not.
They
will, they are, they are anti your mom.
That's correct.
So congratulations to your daughter.
Thank you so much, Don.
And happy birthday.
Oh, thank you very much.
Congratulations to her.
Thank you for coming in.
Always.
Always had a smile on your face.
Glad
to come in.
I'm used to looking at these grumpy people around here, but you had a smile on
your face.
Oh, I think you
give them a smile.
Yeah, right.
Come on.
Thank you, Autumn.
Take good care.
Adam, Adam Lattimore from the Racine Public Library, the Friends of the Library.