Or
I will run no race before my time

Sometimes I think of the Bright Lights Book Project as being like being in a horse race. The horse is grey and has BLBP stitched onto her saddle pad.

Other local stables include the Palmer Public Library, the Palmer Arts Council, and a local bookstore, which will go unnamed because I am so found of it.

Before the race, we’re all congenial. During the race we are competitive. After the race, we’re all congenial.

This week the race is six furlongs. We have now broken from the gate and are headed for the first turn. The Palmer Arts Council’s (PAC) entrant is Ken Waldman, a seasoned campaigner who is up here specifically for this event. He’s appearing in various venues in town, reading his poetry, teaching writing workshops, and playing his fiddle.

And the friends of the Palmer Public Library (fotppl), this weekend, is selling books at the Palmer Senior Center.

As Kurt Vonnegut says in one of his books (I do not remember which) “and so it goes.”

I have often used the analogy of putting on blinkers so that I don’t see the other race entrants. But I have now removed them. What I’ve come to realize is that time spent thinking about where we all are in relation to one another should instead be spent focusing on the task at hand, which is just to keep going. How we finish is unimportant. Thinking about the others and where they are could be better spent (for example) applying for grants or writing thank you notes to people.

What’s going on is a good thing, a sign of a town that has a literate community. There are books, and readers, and events going on all over. How cool is this?

The local recycling center (VCRS) isn’t racing this week. They now have a fairly substantial bookstore, which is one that takes up most of the former education room. I was the one who five years ago alerted the staff to the fact that shredding books was a bad thing, and now they, by virtue of having a bookstore, are shredding far fewer books than they used to.

I am now hearing strains of the old Pete Seeger Song, “Inch by inch, row by row, going to make my garden grow.”

Yep, and on Sunday it’s going to be the Bright Light Book Project’s day to shine. We’ll be in the public eye as everyone boards the concert caboose.

I spent today schlepping books – I had plenty of volunteer assistance. All the books that were to go somewhere were taken to their destination. This included books that came to us from the Pioneer Home (the fiction was put in bins) and books that then went to the Pioneer Home. Actually, the incoming boxes, after being emptied and refilled, went back to their original source. I was fast, dang it.

Next: 105. 4/17/26: Spring has Sprung