The Green Kangaroo

One of my favorite parts of the AASL National Conference is taking a pre-conference school tour. This year I selected Tour 1: "An All-Day Tour Shows How Rural Elementary, Middle, and High School Librarians Bring Resources to Distant Desert Towns." There were eleven of us on the tour -- and those who weren't missed both an exceptional Nevada experience and some fascinating schools and school librarians.

Let's start with the librarians -- those visiting and those being visited. With eleven passengers in a small bus -- driven by a former gym teacher -- the two-hour plus drive quickly became a fluid discussion group involving everyone -- and the "everyone" was pretty diverse: a librarian from a DOD-dependents school in Germany, an energetic Spectrum Scholar from Brooklyn (studying at Simmons), librarians from Hawaii, from a Navajo school in New Mexico, from the state agency in Washington, from schools in Alabama, Vermont, north coast California, Massachusetts. Going and returning, the conversation was rich -- issues of funding, testing, weeding too-old collections, educating faculty and administrators in the values and resources of libraries. Everyone seemed to gain -- a new perspective here, an innovative strategy there. When I could, I contributed to the conversation. Mostly I listened. These conversations nourish me and help me find paths and connections through the Greenroo space.

What was perhaps most striking about the three school librarians who spent so much of their scarce time with us was their absolute commitment to their schools and students -- and the fact that they overwhelmingly chose to see the richness in their tight communities more than the challenges. Resources were not abundant. Chatting with a parent volunteer who worked with the librarian at the first school -- the Natchez Elementary School in Wadsworth (on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation), I commented on the nice-looking, round mats piled up -- just the right size for a child to curl up with a book and read. She told me they bought dog beds -- available inexpensively at many big box stores -- rather than the more costly bean bags and that the wood chip smell faded quickly. I noted that several tour colleagues made notes for the future. In the Johnson Elementary School and Gerlach Middle/High School -- connected to each other -- the two librarians supplement their meager budgets "pushing pizzas." When asked about their challenges, though, they focused instead on the high level of support from their small community -- fewer than 100 students in K-12. The entire elementary school population -- 38 students (no one was absent yesterday)gathered to greet the visitors and sing. The high school library (40-some students) is also a branch of the Washoe County public library, open one night a week to serve adults unable to get to the library in daytime hours. It included an audiobook collection (used primarily by drivers of the large gypsum trucks that regularly passed us on the highway), a career center and a small childrens collection. The conversations in all three schools were expansive and valuable. So, Sherry, Katie and Debbie -- thank you.

Then were was the country itself. We had glimpses of Pyramid Lake -- a lake with no outlet, a residual body from a prehistoric lake, fed by the Truckee River -- inside the reservation boundary of the Northern Paiute. Roads often took us along the Truckee, with trees -- and autumn color -- marking the proximity of water in the desert. Salt flats were another frequent sight. Fedex and UPS trucks zipped past us -- testimony to people and businesses we couldn't always see. Cattle crossing signs -- a novelty to easterners -- seemed more common that stop signs.

Bruno's restaurant in Gerlach was our lunch stop. Arriving too early, we were advised to go another eight miles up the road to Planet X Pottery, "open most of the time." The galleries were, indeed, open and the pottery was well-worth the side trip. If you have no immediate plans to visit the Black Rock Desert, you can visit planetxpottery.com

Back at Bruno's for lunch, nothing on the outside prepared us for the meal inside. Bruno himself was cooking -- an Italian feast, from the array of antipasti to the hand-made ravioli (for which they are rightly famous) to the perfectly-marinated and cooked beef and chicken. Carafes of red wine were on the tables. Bruno came to Nevada as a young man -- who had apprenticed as a butcher -- in the years immediately following World War II. Once in Nevada, like many immigrants he did everything -- from working for U.S. Gypsum to racing bicycles. Eventually, he purchased a roadside restaurant -- in Gerlach -- and began to put his early training in butchering and cooking to use. The result is impressive. Inside and out, it looks simple. But the dining room is lined with pictures of family and friends and feels welcoming. Bruno's daughter and son-in-law were there -- and it's definitely a family business, with at least 3 generations working in the restaurant. Burning Man -- the art festival -- takes place each Labor Day weekend less than a mile from Gerlach -- and the professional crews that set up for Burning Man are a year-round presence. So -- if you're going to Reno or Tahoe or anywhere near -- do go out of your way. Go to the tiny town of Gerlach -- for great food, art, the old wooden water tower, and some very friendly people.