Last night I left my vehicle at school because I don’t drive Deathtrap XL-5 after dark. The glare bothers my eyes. I have to focus on the white line, and I drive slow. This morning I went with Pete to retrieve the vehicle. Over night it rained and the rain froze on the roads. On the way to school we watched cars and trucks slide on the icy asphalt. And we saw where a semi had tripped over. Nearby was a blue car, the same kind as my Suzuki Swift, -- the front was smushed in.

So I retrieved Deathtrap and drove very, very carefully to the recycling center. And I slowed down even further when a vehicle on the left side of the two lane highway (I was on the right hand side) fishtailed. Land O Salmon, I thought.

State Fair recycling cart

I arrived at my destination, and as I was walking in the door I made an analogous comparison. This was that the Bright Lights book project now has traction and will soon have momentum Today was evidence of this. I spent the next several hours sorting. I literally jumped into a chest-high cardboard box and began tossing the books that are to be shredded into a shopping cart, and those that are not, into a cardboard box. I worked nonstop, from noon until 5 p.m.

The special needs folks did come in and do some shredding. They ripped up half a shopping cart full of outdated books. I got ahead of them in short order – by the time I went back upstairs I had filled two shopping carts full of books and as well at least a dozen cardboard boxes. The cardboard boxes that are full of books worthy of passing on will be placed in an area designated for book storage.

I went upstairs and passed around a few books to those who had not left to go home. And promptly at 5:30 p.m, I held the first meeting of the Bright Lights Book Society. It was a good meeting – all my bookish friends were there – this lot included Bill Schmidtkunz, Sarah Gotschalk, Gene Baccus, Carole Henry, and a woman named Judy – I did not catch her last name.

We talked at length about sorting and distributing particulars. The most immediate plans are this – we are going to have a book sale on December 21st – this is going to be a solstice sale – I will put together a flier, and at the top it will say “Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read,” Groucho Marx. Judy, who designed the Bright Light, will make another and we will raffle it off. How cool is that?

Next week, Bill is going to assist me in sorting. We’ll be doing a primary sort, that is going through the gaylords and doing a sort/discard. And we’ll be doing a secondary sort, that is one in which we go through the books we’ve set aside and categorizing them.

There are other plans, but my thinking is that if you go too quickly from traction to momentum you run the risk of going off the straight and narrow.

But we are off to a good start. And it feels as though there is already sand on the road.

Next: 316. 11/15/19: Consider This