Freddy and the Log Cabin, by David Haas

My Favourite Library?

WHERE I FIRST MET FREDDY!

By David Haas

Glengarry Branch of the Calgary Public Library

Early 1950s, Not A Log Cabin

Photo Credit: Calgary Public Library

Colouring added by author

I met Freddy in a log cabin in Calgary on the Western Canadian prairie!

Well, that’s the way I long remembered it. The building was the Calgary Public Library’s Glengarry Branch, opened in 1950. Even in the golden haze of my fond recollection it was not an actual log cabin, rather what we would now call a retro – a cosmetic exterior of partial logs over a more weather proof wall. There still are buildings like that in Alberta.

Alas when researching for this competition I learned the place wasn’t even that. Photographs from the era show that in reality the exterior was just plank siding, probably rough finished and stained a log-like hue.

My mother used to check out books from time to time at the adult department upstairs. And often I tagged along.

The children’s department was downstairs, a treasure trove reached by a separate door and stairway in back of the building. It gave one a delicious sense of entering a place outside the ken of parents. They were allowed in, of course, but not many came. The basement room was paneled in knotty pine, fashionable back then.

I don’t recall my mother being with me the first time I ventured downstairs and checked out my first two books. I’ve never remembered the titles, but I recall a bit about them. One was a story involving a gazillion cats – okay, the internet tells me this must have been the classic Millions Of Cats. The other book involved China and a baking oven (I’m not going to cheat by asking Michael Cart what it would have been).

Nor do I recall a librarian pointing out those books to me, nor later suggesting I try one of their books about a talented porker. I discovered I liked picking out books myself. I cruised the shelves. And Freddy was there!

The Children’s Department of the Glengarry Branch

Showing Shelf Location of Freddy Books

Photo Credit: Calgary Public Library

Colouring added by author

I discovered Freddy on one of those shelves pointed to in the photo. I recall the relevant shelf being about eye level, but the placement of books was not fixed over time. That was I think late 1953 or early 1954, when I was 9 or 10. And over the next year and a half or so – my “Freddy phase” – I went through every Freddy book they had, eagerly watching for new arrivals.

My first Freddy book? Well, that I don’t remember. Possibly Freddy The Detective. I was already familiar with Sherlock Holmes so this one would have rung a bell. The book that really lodged in my mind was Freddy The Magician. I staged a small magic show at my home for my parents. And, four decades later, downhearted over a stage hypnotist not paying his bill for professional services, suddenly the malignant Signor Zingo came back to me. I obtained the book on an interlibrary loan and was soon roaring with laughter! HOW could I ever have forgotten Leo dressed up in Freddy’s buckskin jacket and feather headdress?

My first Freddy book wasn’t Freddy Goes To Florida, under which title To And Again was on the shelves. I definitely recall checking that yarn out after I already had a few Freddy stories under my belt. I missed what is apparent to the more discerning adult eye, that Freddy is not the central character. The book did however have a long term effect, because Walter R. Brooks had a way of hooking a historical reference into his young reader. For decades, even though I had mostly forgotten the details of the Freddy stories, it was impossible for me to read of Balboa, or see a picture of his famous statue in Panama, without thinking of the Grandfather of the All the Alligators reminiscing fondly about spending half a day chewing on the explorer’s delicious boot of old Spanish leather. Now that is making history come alive – even if I can’t seem to find any evidence that Balboa was ever in Florida. Maybe the Grandfather moved around more in his younger days!

There was another valuable long term effect from my Freddy period, though not attributable to our hero. One librarian stands out in my memory. She was deaf. Children coming up to the desk were told they had to face her when speaking so she could read their lips. In later years as deafness grew upon me (a souvenir of my early army days) I remembered the upfront librarian. If you’re deaf, don’t leave people guessing – tell ’em!

One funny incident occurred late in my Freddy period when I had started to cruise the teenage shelves. I spotted a book titled simply Jinx. I checked it out unread, assuming of course it was about Freddy’s feline sidekick. At home I discovered it was the mildly eye popping (for an 11 or 12 year old) 1951 autobiography of an actress and model named Jinx Falkenburg.