Photo Courtesy Dexter K. Oliver: The “Last Goodbye” is now available at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number) E169.12.O397 2022. Request in the Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms.
Column By Dexter K. Oliver
Now it used to be that a writer was a person of some renown. But nowadays that position’s slipped to the lowest one in town.
“This Writing Life” – DKO
The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was founded in 1800 and is the largest such institution in the world. Its mission statement is “to engage, inspire, and inform Congress and the American people with a universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity.” It “preserves and provides access to a rich, diverse source …to engage you in your intellectual and creative endeavors.” The amount of information, erudition, and entertainment found in its hallowed, marbled halls is staggering.
There are three of my dozen self-published books now residing on the shelves in the Library of Congress. I went through the process of donating them to be “carefully reviewed by Library staff” to see if they met the needs of their users as “scholarly and research materials that extend the breadth and depth of our collections.” I thought my memoir, “Journal of a Wayfaring Writer”, and novel, “The Raven’s Beak”, might well qualify but it was my final book, “Last Goodbye”, that I was truly curious about.
All of my books, my 418 bylines in magazines and newspapers, songs, and photographs are archived in the University of Arizona Library’s Special Collections Branch in Tucson. I knew that my scribbling had met with some approval by not only dozens of editors of periodicals but also had garnered academic acceptance. However, my nonfiction work, “Last Goodbye” (see The Gila Herald 9/22/22 and again 8/31/23) had been described as unfit for public consumption in Duncan by one buyer and self-banned in Greenlee and Graham counties.
I didn’t want the volunteer salespeople at the Country Chic Art Gallery and Gift Shop/Duncan Visitors’ Center where my books are sold catching any flack for my controversial musings. And, even though I keep my concealed weapons carry permit up to date, I would rather not be a pariah, walking local streets with a target on my back and having to constantly look over my shoulder. But I also knew that some of my best-researched writing was in that last book. It was indeed, “Something of value” (thank you, Robert Ruark). So, I opted to venture outside the provincial confines of rural Arizona and see what more open (dare I say “sophisticated”) minds might think about the content of my book. Thus, the Library of Congress test.
One of the reasons why cults, conspiracy theories, and con games flourish nowadays is the steadily decreasing art of individual thinking, questioning norms, and avoiding tribalistic brainwashing. The increasing number of Americans who state they want to have an autocrat, a dictator, or a strong man (women need not apply despite the idea being politically correct) rule the country is frankly mind-boggling. Join the military or go to prison if you want to see first-hand what it’s like to have someone tell you when to get up, eat, go to the bathroom, work, and sleep. Most free people don’t like it although some find that childishly comforting, just as they might a lobotomy.
The process of closing one’s mind to fresh, possibly distressful, concepts is a means of willful ignorance, of going through life with myopia. Blind Faith was a ’60s rock and roll band, it needn’t be a requirement for a full life. Not being able to recognize the most blatant and transparent forms of thought control being promoted by politics, religion, and law, fueled by monetary greed and lust for power over others, will always eventually be catastrophic.
Back in 2009, I published a novel of mine titled, “Fool’s Gold” and included a bookmark of lime green paper with the tongue-in-cheek words, “Banned in Texas and Iowa”. This was just a joke about the sexual content that was meant to be entertaining if not instructive and was certainly no different than situations described at length in that internationally popular compilation known as the Holy Bible. Some people got it, others didn’t.
But I never really thought I would be restricting the sale of one of my books because a local populace of Americans was so entrenched in conventionally immutable beliefs that they would become infuriated at any hint of intellectual contention. The book is still out there, but you have to know the right people to be able to buy it. Or you can read it at the Library of Congress, where I was vindicated and it has been validated and deemed valuable.
Dexter K. Oliver is a freelance writer, wildlife field biologist, fur trapper, and nuisance wildlife control operator with decades of hands-on experience.
