Dr. Billington

Yesterday I met The Librarian of the Library of Congress. I find it interesting that there is only one librarian in the entire structure, everybody else is a curator, or head, chief, director, whatever, but not with librarian in the title. Anyway, the guy is 79 years old, and he loves to talk. Unfortunately for me, it was right after lunch, so my attention span wasn't so great. But that's because he wasn't saying anything that caught my interest.
We had a photo op, then he talked, a few questions were asked, and then we were allowed to have refreshments. That gave him, and us, a chance to talk more one on one. I told him about what I was doing (looking at copyright applications from 1899 looking for original documents, in case you didn't know), and that I was finding a lot of stuff on Admiral George Dewey (my exhibit). He told me a story about how his grandfather used to drive boats out the ship Dewey was on, and all the passengers caused the boat to capsize because they all ran to one side of the boat to hopefully see Dewey on his ship. He eventually moved to California to do insurance, and wouldn't you know it, there was an earthquake that destroyed San Francisco in 1906. He ended up dying, and Dr. Billington's father had to start working at 14 to support the family.
Something cool about Dr. Billington: he's a history major. That's right, he's cool. His emphasis is in Russia, but I can't remember if there is a time period he specializes in. And because there were ladies from my department there, Tara (the other copyright intern) and I got our picture taken with Dr. Billington.