I haven’t had a Saturday off in a long, long time. And I do not think that I’ll be getting a Saturday off for a long, long time. One of the things that I’ve discovered is that Pete and I are holding down the Bright Lights Book Project fort. It seems like there is always something that needs to be done. The work is either hands on or administrative.

I wasn’t going to go in today – I suspect the fact that it was blustery and overcast had something to do with my decision, to do the old hi ho, hi ho. The problem was (I thought at first), I didn’t have any dwarfs to give me an assist.

Alys Leaving Butte on Contenital Divide Ride

There were seven of them who kept Snow White company. They were Doc, Sneezy, Grumpy, Dopey, Bashful, Sleepy, and Happy. I suspect that their respective names were reflective of their individual characters. The subtext here is that these seven dwarfs, who did not get paid for their hard work, were volunteers. And as such, they were representative of volunteers in general.

Volunteers are workers who don’t get paid in cash for what they do. They tend to guard their time and fritter some of their work hours away. This is because we live in a world in which work is equated with economic incentive. If, say, the dwarves were paid, they would have had differing attitudes and perhaps differing names. Walt Disney was well aware of this, which is why the dwarves were not given differing names, such as Bob, Martin, Maxwell, Gideon, Samuel, Tait, or Glenn. We become what we’re named.

What got me to thinking about this is the book project. Now there are a dozen volunteers. They could all be named Sneezy right now because it’s the cold season. I would put BLBP names to dwarf names, but if I did this, I might be sued. However, it was easy for me to draw parallels.

I’m still a volunteer. Pete is still a volunteer. We are unusual in that we, without question, put in more hours than the other volunteers. The other volunteers are more guarded with their time. Some would freely admit to this.

I need to be more guarded with my time. I planned on staying home today, then I planned on leaving at 1:30 p.m. I ended up staying until 5:30 p.m. The reason I stayed was because the other two volunteers and Pete were getting work done, and I didn’t want to set a poor example. We four were working companionably, and if I’d left, work would have been left undone.

I think that if I had a conversation with Snow White about all this, she would agree with my sentiments. It appears as though she was always chipper – but I’ll bet she often went back home and wondered how in the world she’d keep them all motivated the following day. There’s a poem in this – maybe it should be called “Snow White Fails to go Gentle into that Goodnight.”

Next: 75. 3/17/24: Nothing Green Here