Wanted: a library Trustee. Could that be you?

Maren Francis, founder and former owner of the Hooked on Books bookstore, longtime library Trustee, and past President of the Library Board, will be stepping down at the end of this year.

Today is a day of remembrance. Today is a day when we tell stories, and try to understand the meaning of events both large and small.

The story of 9/11 is well known now, a defining memory for all who witnessed it, like the assassination of JFK, or the moon walk.

The meaning of the events of Sept. 11 is still clouded, however, in part because the story isn't finished.

On Labor Day weekend, I took my 8 year old son to Salida. It's a lovely town.

We went to the enormous covered pool (fed by local hot springs). We played catch in the park. We drove up a dirt spiral drive to the top of Salida's famous "S" Mountain. We strolled through the historic downtown and declaimed from the stage of a riverside park.

And we took a walk along the Arkansas River.

Three weeks ago, I mentioned that I was going to trying to move from my Macintosh operating system (9.2) to something called Linux, a clone of the Unix operating system. I mentioned two reasons for this attempt: first, Linux is free (if you download it from the Internet) or cheap (a typical CD-ROM installation costs about $30).

Second, Linux now runs a variety of office applications -- spreadsheets, word processors, browsers, email, and the like. They, too, are free.