Where do we come from?

[Joan Kimball <jkim@BORG.COM>]

I have loved reading about all of us....
        here's my journey.

By the age of eight I knew I wanted to be a teacher.  I taught my 3 younger
sisters everything from playing the piano to reciting nonsense verse to
climbing on our roof(which the neighbors objected to).

Through high school and college I tutored kids in math and Latin, was a
Brownie leader, and camp counsellor. In college I steered away from
education courses because I thought they were
unchallenging....instead---and because I thought a teacher should have a
broad liberal arts background---I majored in English and history and
minored in philosophy.

Marriage a month after college in 1953 to a soldier who was sent to Korea,
saw me back with my parents where I landed a 14-month job I loved as a
title searcher for a law firm. Part of the job was to create a map index of
all the titles searched. (Little did I realize it was giving me research
and cataloging fever!)  When my husband left the army we went overseas for
5 years, living 1 year in Belgium where our 2nd child was born and 4 years
in Zaire where our 3rd child was born; where I learned to speak French and
Lingala, and where I ran my own nursery school, meanwhile taking a
correspondence course in Montessori techniques.

I still considered myself a teacher in the making in 1965 back in the
States when I enrolled at age 33 in a masters course for teachers. But I
never had a chance to be a teacher. I started volunteering in my kids'
elementary school library, and was smitten!  At age 36 I started a new
masters in library science  at Southern CT College, got my first job after
4 courses, and have been in the field ever since, serving from nursery
through ninth graders---except for four years when we moved to VT and I
couldn't get a school library job. I worked then as a book store manager
(got that out of my system and won't do it when I retire), and worked as an
indexer of both a 19c. archive of family letters, and for Fred Burkhardt
who was doing an exhaustive catalog with copious notes of the Charles
Darwin letters----both fascinating but temporary jobs.

I've been in my present job as a K-5 school librarian for 17 years, having
gotten the job when I was 48. In 1981 I started teaching the teachers to
program computers when we got our first VIC-20 with 5 K of memory, and I've
owned a computer and I've been giving and taking inservice ever since. I
just finished taking a 1-day course in making a web page and a 5-day course
in _Math Their Way_.

I have no burn-out.....I'm not sure why, but maybe because I haven't
*always* done library stuff.  On the other hand, being a full-time mother
for many years and hopping about as I have, means that my pension and
social security are low for a 65 year-old.  My family wants me to
retire...maybe I should...but I am just about to create a web page for the
library and automate the library; I love this listserv which keeps me on my
toes; and I don't know of anything as stimulating that I could be doing.
Maybe I could work as a cataloger of web pages...I don't know.  I have 4
granddaughters and 2 more grandkids on the way. I love seeing them in my
holidays.  What more could I ask for?


Joan Kimball, Librarian (jkim@borg.com)
Clinton, NY
Hart's Hill Elementary School Library
Clark Mills Road, Whitesboro, NY 13492