CJ Garriott was honored by Calhoun County Library Director Naomi Cruz and the Port Lavaca Library staff with a reception at the Seadrift Library on September 29.
After 8 years, 7 months as Librarian at the Seadrift Branch of Calhoun County Library, CJ Garriott, has retired. At age 76, this is CJ’s second time to retire from the workforce. The first was in 1998 when she retired from her 23-years as a typesetter for an Austin firm and moved to Seadrift. For one year she was actually “retired”, but found she kept wondering when her “vacation” should be over.
Feeling the need to have a productive job, CJ worked with the Census in 2000, and then in 2001 and 2002 held down a couple of part-time jobs, followed by nine months co-managing a Port O’Connor motel.
Having a lot of clerical experience, including being a church secretary, establishing and organizing a library for the church, CJ was a natural for the Librarian position when it became available. After working in cramped quarters serving the needs of Seadrift library patrons, she was privileged to oversee the recent move to the Library’s spacious new facility.
CJ plans to spend her extra time doing what she loves: writing and photography. She hopes to resume the “Livin’ on the Bay” newsletter that she began in 1999 (and stopped temporarily this year) and is searching for a venue to publish it on line. She invites everyone to check out her blog (livinonthebay.blogspot.com) and intends to make more day trips around the state so she can see more things to photograph and write about. CJ also welcomes anyone to contact her on Facebook or at her email address: mactracks@yahoo.com.
A few years ago, CJ wrote a book, Curve of the Coast, and she hopes her retirement will give her the time to write a second. She is also looking forward to being able to visit more with her family back in her home state of Kansas.
We wish CJ a happy retirement, and thank her for her years of service to the Seadrift community.
Robbie Bess, who has been substitute librarian for the past few years, is now the Seadrift Librarian.
