OCPL Staffer of the Month
Barb McMakin
Library staffer since December 2008
About My Family
I am a step-mom to Dale's daughter, Micki, who was five years old when we got married. Micki has a son, Alden, age 12 and a daughter Alex, age 3.
I have one older sister , Carolyn. She was eight when I was born. Family also includes two nieces (both married), two great nieces, and a great nephew (also married).
Dale has a brother, Pat. Pat has grown kids, Patrick and Jennifer, both married. Patrick and his wife, Emily, had their first son, Colin, in January of this year.
And my animal family
I think most of you know Herbert, our pot-bellied pig, who visited during After School Adventures. In addition, there is Lucy the llama, Hayden the donkey, goats Bela and Fleck, miniature horses Rose and Spitfire, our St. Bernard, Chelsea, and our Pomeranian, Liz. We also have cats, Li'l Kitty, and our resident mouser, Elliott.
Life Before OCPL
I married my first husband when I was seventeen. We divorced seven years later. During our marriage we owned and operated an insurance agency in Hardinsburg, Indiana.
Dale and I married in 1980 and pretty much worked together until we sold our business in 2007. We installed, serviced, and sold small business telephone systems. Dale had the technical experience and I worked primarily in sales and took care of the bookkeeping.
Other places, other times
I was born in Jeffersonville, Indiana and lived there until 1978 when I moved to Hardinsburg with my first husband. After my divorce, I shared an apartment in New Albany with two other gals.
When their situation changed, I bought a small house on Sherwood Avenue in Clarksville. It was just below where the Falls of the Ohio State Park was later built. I used to walk along the grassy flood wall with my German Shepard, Heidi, or sit and watch the river.
How I got here
After a year, I was keeping my ears open for a part-time job that I would enjoy and that would provide some extra cash. We had a post office box in Crestwood so I was there every day. One morning I mentioned to Sharon that I was looking for a job. She told me she thought the library was hiring and that Vicki Marsh had just been in there. My next stop was at South Oldham. I interviewed a few days later with Vicki, Mary, and Rhonda. I started with the library on December 10, 2008.
Of course we have to include books!
Mary Oliver's poem "The Journey" changed my life. It is what made me want to write. It is a timeless piece that continues to fire me up each time I read it.
[Read more of Mary Oliver's poetry]
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice – – -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations – – -
though their melancholy
was terrible. It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do – – – determined to save
the only life you could save.
I bet you didn't know!
I sold Mary Kay cosmetics from 1980 to 1982 (yes, I wore it, too) to supplement our income. Hard to believe since I rarely wear makeup now. Amazingly, I was pretty good at it.
I will be sixty this year. I hope to celebrate by doing a behind the scenes tour with Bravo, an eighty-year old Galapagos tortoise who is temporarily in residence at the Newport Aquarium. For those of you who know me, you know that is something I'd want to do anyway. But I can't help but see the humor in visiting an aging tortoise on this milestone of my birth. I, too, am slowing down.