A productive morning: took the dogs for a walk and brushed all three horses. Then I went to town, picked up some boxes, stopped by U-Haul, filled the back of the car with children’s books, went swimming, then returned to the hotel where I reboxed the children’s books and put them on the long table so that the volunteers can clean them.

This in itself was a full day’s work. There was more to come. Pete met me at the hotel, and then we both went to Mat-Su Health Foundation CEO Elizabeth Ripley’s retirement party

It was held at the Chop House (no kidding) on Lake Lucille. The event was held in the banquet room – my gaze all afternoon kept drifting back in the direction of the lake. It snowed last night, so the ice surface was white. I’ll bet underneath that the ice was close to being water again.

It was one of those retirement parties where whoever put it together appeared to have attempted to make a big splash. Attempted. The food, a catered banquet line, had plenty to eat on hand. It looked better than it tasted. A true test of such events is how it ends up looking on your plate. I knew that it wasn’t going to be that great.

There was, after the food, music, with a local choir ensemble. Lois, who is a volunteer, was one singer, and Nan Potts was another. The songs, one of which was a Robert Frost song (The Road Taken) and another, a travel song (Kokomo), were a retirement metaphor/tribute.

There were speeches and plaques. Speeches and plaques, ad infinitum. Lisa Wade, who is with the Chickaloon Tribe, was both the Master of Ceremonies and a speech giver.

Lisa did very well expressing the sentiments of the community and the Chickaloon tribe.

There were online thank yous from politicians – they were not near as eloquent as Lisa was. They also seemed disingenuous.

After, there was a photo session. It by this time that I was beginning to feel like this event was a wedding. It must be that online now, there are steps and protocols to follow; this is why I am passing on going to either.

After all this, as the crowd was disbursing, Pete walked around and passed out bookmarks and finished telling anyone who would listen and some who would not listen all about our project. Everyone did seem to say, “good project,” which in understatement.

Pete was relentless. He kept talking even when it appeared that those he was talking to were inching their way in the direction of the proverbial door. Every once in a great while, someone would get interested in hearing about how the project came to be, and stick around for a minute more.

We were successful in working the crowd. We then celebrated by going to the Little Dipper ice cream shop in town and getting cones. We also cased out the joint, seeing where we might put yet another bookcase.

We don’t have it in us to give up that easily.

Next: 101. 4/12/25: Pete as Motivator