We each come into this world with a word limit, that is a certain number of words we can utter. It varies from person to person. With some, the word count is three. For others, 3 million. The reason why we are not careful about how many words we use in a given situation is because very few give the matter any thought.

Me, I go so far as to keep quiet at boring meetings because I know if I stay quiet that the meeting will end sooner rather than later. For every time we speak, we are using up a certain amount of time. None of these thoughts are new to me, and most likely not new to you, my readers.

Bookcases in Koslosky Building

But I am nearly out of words, not because I’m reaching the end of my word tether, although I might be, but because I am really tired. I’m tired because I’m discouraged. I’m discouraged because I’m tired.

I had a brilliant reflective speech prepared for the Lions Club meeting today. You say something that you are grateful for and put a dollar in the pot. Alas, I didn’t get a chance to say what I was thinking because there was a guest presentation – a group of individuals who have a 501(c)(3) and were looking for donations came and spoke about their ongoing efforts to raise money to support veterans with suicide related issues. The two, a man and a woman, involve the veterans in the sport of mushing.

They warmed everyone’s hearts with their photos of their puppies and their long horned, hairy cows. I don’t remember what these cows are called. The couple went overtime grr grr grr, and so the Lions Club powers that be did not go around asking everyone what they are grateful for – for each thing you are grateful for you have to put a buck in the bucket. Instead, the Lions club officers simply had everyone pitch in money, which they gave to Challenge 22. They netted $122.00.

Now when we gave our dog and pony show, we did not have any photos of puppies, or nice land, or restful sunsets. We simply talked about our role in literacy related efforts. Well, we will do things differently the next time. My goal is simply to get the little library going at the Family Park.

Well, the Challenge 22 people ran over grr grr grr, and so I didn’t get to say what I wanted, which was related to our having to move our books and bookcases out of the K Building and back into the former banquet room of the historic Eagle Hotel.

I was going to start off by saying that the reflective activity is a good thing because it gets everyone thinking, including me. This time, I was going to add, I was scraping the bottom of the bucket. I was then going to talk about what happened at the K Building, that is that we were ordered to move the books and bookcases out – but that I was, ahem, grateful that I had assistance in taking care of this endeavor. Yes, this was what I was going to say.

It was probably fortuitous, that I didn’t get a chance to speak. I may have put foot in mouth. Plus, I saved on my word count, giving me an extra fifteen minutes of life on this gosh darn lovely planet.

Next: 24. 1/24/24: No Words but in Things