The title of today’s dispatch is from a Paul Simon song, one with just three chords. You smile, thinking of it, because it’s so upbeat.

Right now is the toughest time of year, so being upbeat is important. It’s now the beginning of winter, with several months of inclement weather and darkness ahead.

Winter took you by surprise this year – more so than other years – now because it’s winter, time will slow to a crawl.

Cloudy here

Winter always takes some getting used to, particularly the darkness. First and foremost, there are the logistical aspects of it. You have a difficult time driving after dark, so now you (for example) have to leave the Meeting House, as you did today, by 4:30 p.m. at the latest.

You don’t know for sure about how the Subaru (nicknamed The Great White Hope) handles after dark, meaning, what sort of visibility you might have – and you don’t want to find out.

The time crunch is such that you are now getting going earlier and quitting earlier.

It seems to get dark earlier when it’s overcast, as it did today.

You had a full schedule ahead of you today. First you went to the Meeting House and boxed up books for distribution. Then you went to the Palmer Senior Center and laid out the week’s books. You must now put them in storage in a maintenance cupboard on Friday, then set them out on Monday.

While there, you talked to a gentleman who is an artist teaching art classes there. He said he’d like to have a cart, one like those you find in restaurants. He said that he’d put his art supplies on the top shelf, and books on the second shelf, the second shelf books would enable him to show his students illustrations by other painters.

I’m going to start searching around for such a cart. They did not have one at the Mat-Su School District Warehouse, which was your second stop.

There you finished the job you started on Friday. The bulk of it was done then, so you had less than a hand cart full of books to box up. All total, you had approximately fifty boxes of books ready to be (the phrase is) palletized, when you were done.

You aren’t at all worried about having too many young adult and children’s books on hand because they go quickly. In fact, you took a box with you, and they were almost gone by the time you were done with the day’s distribution.

Next stops, the Mat-Su Borough building, the DMV, and the Bugge Park Little Library. You announced to the voters standing in line at the borough building that there were free books in the lobby. You had one taker, a father and his four year old daughter. She took two books. Bugge Park – you decided to remove the hardback children’s books and replace them with paper books. This way, the hardback books won’t be damaged by the elements.

Lastly, you returned to the Meeting House and cleaned and categorized books. And you headed for home when, early on, the streetlights went on. For sure, winter is here.

Next: 307. 11/8/22: Vote Goat