Man Promises To Pay Fines On Wyoming Library Book He Checked Out 31 Years Ago

Josiah Harlow made a connection with a technicolor Robin Hood novel from the 1950s while he was a teenager at Cheyenne’s Central High School in 1994.

How it happened exactly remains a mystery to him to this day. Like a lot of people who have inadvertently kept a library book for 30-some years, he doesn’t remember the entire chain of events. 

In this case, he just remembers that there was something about the book that caught at him, and he picked it up.

Sometimes, that’s just how life is. A thing catches your eye at the right moment in time, when the light is just right, and the magic of the moment becomes a part of your life from that day forward.

So it was for Harlow and the library book “The Silver Horn of Robin Hood,” by Donald Ewin Cooke. It’s a favorite book in his collection, but the truth is, the book isn’t really even his. It’s a library book he never returned.

The book, when Harlow spotted it, was sitting on a shelf with a couple of duplicate copies in the school library. It was 1994. He might have been on a lunch period, he can’t recall, but he was a frequent visitor to the library. 

The book, when he saw it, just stopped him in his tracks. 

“I’ve always liked Robin Hood tales in general,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “My favorite movie is the 1930s version of Robin Hood, with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland.”

The cover evoked the 1930s movie with its technicolor brightness, and Harlow couldn’t resist picking it up to flip through the pages.

That’s when he saw the cool illustrations inside.

“I have always been overly nostalgic,” he said. “And this book just stood out to me as this beautiful, old, lonely book, that probably nobody had paid attention to anymore.”

But Harlow was paying attention. He decided then and there that the lonely book was coming home with him. 

Still A Mystery

Harlow wouldn’t dream of getting rid of this cherished book now. 

It’s earned an honored spot in his home library, which includes a lot of old science fiction and fantasy novels. Among them are several duplicate copies of a particular set of Bradbury books with particularly neat artwork.

“In fact, whenever I see copies with that particular artist, I buy them even though I have duplicates,” he admitted. “Just because I think the artwork is so cool.”

But recently, Harlow did post a half-serious apology for checking out “The Silver Horn of Robin Hood” and never returning it to the school library in the Facebook group, Cheyenne Community Connections 2.0.

He blames the post on his love of the nostalgic, and the fact a post he’d made a few weeks before on the early days of Frontier Mall attracted a huge response — and a flood of fond memories and photos.

So, as he was taking another spin around the block with his old friend one night, he took note of the cool embossed stamps inside the book and wondered who else had held his treasured book, who else had checked it out. 

Were there any other souls who wandered the halls of Cheyenne Central High who were like him, and loved this book?

“This book was published in 1956,” he wrote in his post. “It would be awesome to know the history of who checked it out over the years. Interesting to think that it was probably in the library of the old Central location downtown, when that was still operational as a school.”

Harlow jokingly added that the next time he’s in Cheyenne, he "will swing by to pay my overdue fees!" His parents still live in Cheyenne, so that’s realistic. 

Old Memories Are The Real Treasure

Harlow doesn’t know what the fines might be by now. Cowboy State Daily called the school’s librarian to ask, but didn’t receive a response. 

Harlow doubts that the school is interested in collecting either the book or the fine. He’d be willing to pay the fines, of course, to keep the book. Though his real reason for swinging by the school would be taking in all the changes since he was a student. 

His post attracted some who kidded him for depriving them of their chance to check the book out. Although, since there were duplicates of that particular book on the shelves, that’s not likely the case. Others suggested his parents had probably already paid the fines without him knowing. 

But the post Harlow enjoyed the most was from Brooke Virginia Farris, who told him her mom was the librarian the year he checked the book out. Her post had been exactly the kind of thing he was hoping for. A forgotten memory to treasure, alongside his overdue library book.

“Your fine was probably not higher than $5 back then,” she said, posting a photo of her mom.

“I totally recognize her,” Harlow replied. “Though I doubt she would remember me at all. Although I did spend many a lunch period in the library. I was quite popular.”

A Cozy Life

Like many who have discovered an old, overdue library book, Harlow isn’t sure how he ended up keeping the Robin Hood book past its due date in the first place. It was too long ago, so he can’t remember exactly what happened.

But he knows it wasn’t intentional. He was a busy teenager, getting ready for graduation, getting ready to go out into the world, and an old Robin Hood library book was the last thing on his mind.

It was easy for such a book to just slip through the cracks and right into one of the many boxes he was packing his life into, to carry it all to Denver.

There, he attended the Colorado Christian University for a year or so and worked at a whole food grocery store called Wild Oats. That store has since gone extinct, but he still remembers that time of his life fondly. It’s when and where he met his future wife.

If the library book was around at that time, Harlow doesn’t remember it. Though logically, he will concede that it had to have been, since he still has it these many years later. 

“I’m sure there were several years where it was just boxed away,” he said. 

Harlow and his wife made multiple moves after Denver, and the library book went with them everywhere, never becoming lost. The couple lived in Oregon, Tennessee, Wyoming and, most recently, Texas, where his wife has family. They’ve been there since 2010.

Harlow gets an urge to read this library book again every two to three years.

Not that the book is particularly well-written.

“It’s just a very sort of cozy, nostalgic book,” he said. “And maybe because the Robin Hood movie is one of my favorites, I have these visuals in my head of the characters when I’m reading it.”

Keeper Of Old Memories

Harlow still isn’t sure why this old library Robin Hood book has had such a hold over him these many years — reading it off and on, keeping it on his library shelves as an honored guest. He could sell it on eBay for up to $59, but that doesn’t interest him at all at this point.

“I’ve always just been this collector of older things that seem kind of ordinary that just get forgotten about,” he said. “I feel like I’m kind of the collector and keeper of old memories.”

Keeping a lost and lonely book these many years is suggestive of stories waiting to be told, though. Stories about nostalgia and memories and friends from long ago. Not to mention new memories of adventures yet to be had.

Sometimes, life is just like that. 

We don’t know why we pick the less traveled path, or the less read book.

But we will tell ourselves stories about it, and, through these stories, we’ll know that somehow, it made all the difference.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.