There they were last Friday: the first snowflakes of the season that isn’t here yet.

We haven’t gotten all the screens down. There’s still furniture on the porch. The zinnias are still standing looking like shriveled little witches. The dill is down but not out. Some bulbs are planted. More not.

Make another pot of coffee. Think of other things. There were other noteworthy events to consider last week. The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Social Security Administration’s interactive video service system housed at the Rumford Public Library was a high point. The company was cordial, the food was good, the ceremony itself was short and sweet. Ours is the first and only such SSI facility in New England. It provides valuable services to SSI clients, and it introduces the Rumford library to a new audience.

You read it here in Valley Voices. I saw a Red Republican and a Blue Democrat hugging each other right there in the Rumford Library’s Public Room! Bright spot in these contentious times.

On the same occasion, Sue Ellen Richardson, now of Western Maine Community Action but once at Head Start in the Chisholm School, recalled “Dial a Story.” Head Start kids could phone the library and have a story read to them. “We did have to get permission from the authors,” Sue Ellen said, but almost all of them readily agreed.

Well, that’s a dandy idea that might come ’round again, this time featuring children’s stories by Maine authors. Why not? Retiree members of the Oxford County Education Association are promoting a program called Maine Books for Maine Kids.

Oxford Hills area teachers Karen Ellis and Elaine Lageuex created the project. Its goal is to make Maine children aware of Maine authors and their successes. Gert Downs sold the Rumford Book Club on the idea. For about $125, the club purchased autographed copies of Lynn Plourde’s “At One in a Place Called Maine” for the public libraries of Andover, Buckfield, Dixfield, Hanover, Mexico and Rumford. Now the Rumford Book Club is resolved to engage other organizations in “Maine Books for Maine Kids.”

Outside the Rumford library one day last week, Dennis Breton and Mike Mills and yours truly took a walk along the River Park Trail. It was once a part of the Chisholm Park that ran along the river from the foot of the Falls to the footbridge to the mill.

There can’t be many people who know Rumford as well as Dennis does. From the trail’s river overlook, he pointed to the falls and rapids just above Memorial Bridge, long known as Knapp’s Pitch. Nathan Knapp was a prominent citizen of Rumford back in the early 19th century. He was prosperous, too, and owner of mills up on Falls Hill. Knapp’s life ended abruptly. In 1833 he fell into the Androscoggin River — at his pitch? — and drowned.

There’s much work still to be done on the restored River Park Trail, including picnic tables, benches and signa, but most urgent is the removal of the saplings and brush that hide the trail from the sidewalk and street above. Let’s hope the heavy snows hold off for yet a while because Mike Mills hopes to get the clearing done over the next months once other Parks and Recreation tasks are completed.

Surely no snow will fall on Nov. 2! Help get out the vote and get out and vote!

Linda Farr Macgregor is a freelance writer. Contact her at  [email protected]