Colusa, California

The Bayliss Carnegie is one of the most unique of the 2,509 libraries Carnegie funded around the world and epitomizes his desire to make libraries accessible to all. It resides at the intersection of two county roads fourteen miles from the nearest town, contrary to the normal Carnegie policy of small town libraries being located a block or two from the center of the town.  Glenn County convinced him of the need for a library for its rural residents.  Carnegie provided $4,000 for the small red-trimmed stucco library that would be worthy of the cover of a book on the Carnegies of California when someone gets around to writing it.  It is a most inviting building hardly needing the sign out front along  the road stating “The Library Welcomes Everybody.”

Its limited hours are spread over two days a week—Tuesday afternoons and Saturday mornings.  We arrived Monday.  Tim preceded me by a couple of hours and was fortunate to meet one of the library volunteers preparing for a bunco fundraiser the next day. Tim told her about our travels visiting Carnegies.  She invited us to camp on the grassy grounds behind it and stick around for the bunco-playing the next day.  I joined Tim at 4:30.  Though there was ninety minutes of daylight remaining and  enticing camping amongst all the orchards in this valley, I couldn’t say no to camping beside a Carnegie and finally having an evening with Tim.

Tim had his stove at the ready on a picnic table beside the library and some packets of soup.  He’d already hard-boiled a dozen eggs he’d acquired from a nearby farm, always a treat when on the road.  All I had for him were seven bungee cords and a quality folding knife I’d picked up in the day-and-a-half since we’d last seen each other.  I had earlier given him two bungee cords, so he said this was enough.  I found another red neckerchief, but he doesn’t accept those, so I could add it to my collection.

In the center of the expansive grassy yard was a gazebo built for the centennial celebration of the library in 2017.  It was a gala affair with a 70-piece band from Chico.  A plaque on a shed near the gazebo quoted Cicero—“If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need.”  We certainly had everything we needed this evening, including water and electricity. It didn’t matter that the library’s WiFi wasn’t on, as we weren’t short on things to talk about.

Tim had spent the previous night at a truck stop on Interstate 5 amongst a cluster of over-nighters, including a guy sleeping in a Prius, so he welcomed the peace and tranquility of  this Nowheresville.  I welcomed some company for the first time.  I thought I might have had some the night before when I sought out a state park, but it didn’t allow camping, so it was another night in an orchard for me.

Hardly a vehicle drove by the Carnegie in all the time we were there, but there was the chance some wary soul might spot us and alert the police.  Tim hadn’t gotten the name of the person who granted us permission to camp, but we were confident we could justify our presence if need be.

After the sun went down, we had to drape sleeping bags over our legs to ward off the temperatures dipping from the high fifties to the low forties.  We abandoned the picnic table to get out of the wind and sat in a couple of camp chairs from Tim’s arsenal of equipment.  We preferred remaining outside rather than retreating to Tim’s car or my compact tent.  Tim reported that he had gone to Paradise after all and that it was more devastated than one could imagine, the town of 26,000 totally wiped out by the worst fire in the history of California this past November.  All that remained were stone fireplaces here and there.  It would be years before it could be reinhabited, as the ground water had been polluted from incinerated plastic and other elements.

Bayliss was my third Carnegie of the day and thirteenth of this trip.  The first of the day in Corning was surrounded by towering palm trees, complementing it’s stucco style.  It now housed the offices of a company that arranged for hospice and other care.  Corning is 150 miles south of the Oregon border and as far north as I will be going, forsaking the four Carnegies beyond until another time, perhaps including them when I make my foray to the Northwest Carnegies.

It was twelve miles south to the next Carnegie in Orland, which sat in a park, which at one time it had all to itself. It was now a Community Center and shared the park with the new library, a no-frills one-story building that looked like temporary quarters, but now served as its permanent replacement.  It was the first library of this trip that required a password to use its WiFi.  I didn't mind at all for the chuckle it gave me—“bemyguest.” After getting on line I received the good news from Tim of hard-boiled eggs and a place to camp for the night.  If there were a competition for “best traveling companion one could hope for,” I’d certainly be nominating him.

After no visits from anyone during the night or the next morning, we were on our way by our separate means to the Carnegie in Willows, fourteen miles to the southeast.  It was now a museum and another flanked by palms.  It had a six-pillared portico entry, but all we could do was peer in as it had limited hours and none this day.  I hadn’t jotted down it’s address so had to stop at a store when I entered the town to ask it’s whereabouts.  The person behind the counter had to check on her computer to find out where it was.  After I left and had mounted my bike another woman in the store came rushing out and asked if I’d like a cup of coffee.

I had a similar dose of friendliness at the city hall adjoining the new library, when a clerk there went to an extra effort to find the password for the library’s WiFi, as it was closed for President’s Day.  I wasn’t fully expecting such kindness, as the last time I had biked through California, librarians and others shied away from me thinking I was part of the homeless tribe of bikers roaming the state and inhabiting the state parks.  But those are more along the coast, and I am so far an anomaly in this central part of the state not inhabited by scruffy characters with bikes piled high with all of one’s belonging.

It was thirty miles to the next Carnegie in Corusa through more tidy orchards of almond and peach and walnut trees that went on and on.  All too often I sniffed skunk, the predominant and virtually only roadkill.  Tim was parked across the street out of range of the security cameras mounted on the building, now a police office, one of two Carnegies in the state repurposed to such a use. Tim said the town had given him the creeps.  It was somewhat justified by a nearby plaque entitled “The Lincoln Assassination Incarceration.”  Eight residents of the town, including the editor of its weekly paper, the district attorney and the justice of the peace were arrested for exalting over the assassination of Lincoln.  They were sent to Alcatraz, but released shortly thereafter when they agreed to take an oath of allegiance to the United States.

The Carnegie was a solid stone building, perfect for a police station.  Orange trees laden with fruit gave it a California flavor.  It retained its sense of having been a library with “Shakespeare” and “Emerson” over its two frontside bay windows.

Along the stretch to Corusa I added a license plate to my scavenging.  It was face down. I turned it over with much anticipation. I was hoping it might be one of the old blue or black California plates, but, almost as good, it was from Oregon, as I am certain to find a few Californian plates in the hundreds of miles ahead, and not so likely to come upon one from Oregon.  That puts me one state closer to a complete set for Dwight.