Forty years of driving the Whitevale library van
He knows which farm gate to honk at and which child is waiting for the next Wimpy Kid. On his last run this month, eleven families came out to the road.
The route has not changed much in forty years. The stops have: three farms became subdivisions, one subdivision became a stop of its own, and the school moved once.
What has not changed is the honk. Two short at the gate, and whoever is waiting comes down the drive.
People think it is about the books. It is a bit about the books. Mostly you are the only person some of these houses see on a Tuesday.
On the route, forty years
The van keeps running. The library has hired a replacement and he has been riding along since June, learning which gates get the honk.
The van itself is on its third body and second engine. The route sheet is the same laminated card, annotated in four colours of pen, and it is being handed over rather than retyped.
On the second-last run a family flagged it down half a kilometre before the stop, which is not allowed and has never once been refused.
The route was designed in 1985 for a township that had eleven working farms on it. It has three now. The stops that replaced them are subdivisions where the van parks at a corner and a dozen children arrive at once, which is a different job and one he says he likes less and does anyway.
The library measures the route by circulation, and by that measure it has been marginal for a decade. It has survived four budget reviews. Each time, the deputation that saves it is made up of people from the road.
