Despite the fact the Chairman of the Village Trustees of Broadwater is on record as disliking liberals, hippies, long-haired freaks, and not too keen on atheists (even as I write they are gathering at the Lutheran Church across what counts as a street), he still nominated me to the Village Board.

My long-haired hippieness graced the front page of the county newspaper this week.

My wife and I had to go into town (sixteen miles, or twenty-five kilometers for those of you that use a sane measurement system) to get some legal paperwork drawn up by a lawyer.

Since the only person other than him in his office is his sister, and she could not witness the paperwork, we all walked over to the sheriff's office for Sheriff Milo and his deputy for witnesses.

Sheriff Milo peered across the counter at me, and said: I know you - I saw your picture in the paper.

I assured him I was not depicted as a criminal, but a respectable government official.

But the folk around here would probably like to see my hair go away, as it detracts from the decorum of the board meetings.

I put up a proposal to the village library director, and she was all on board about this: for every $100 donated to the Friends of the Library, I will cut off one inch (2.5 cm) of my hair. (No shorter than a Navy regulation haircut, though.)

I will lay that before the Library Board at the next meeting. If they like the idea of their Trustee actually getting respectable with a haircut, then I will lay the idea before the village at the next Trustee meeting.

I won't take any amount of money for the Library Friends to go to the church though: there are things even I wouldn't do.

In the meantime, I am laid up with a hugely-swollen knee. It is the Library Director's fault.

She made me sign one of the village's liability waivers for volunteers, the first time I have ever done that volunteering in the village. (Now that I am a trustee perhaps she thought she ought make me follow the rules.)

Not ten minutes later, I banged a printer against my knee while we were doing the final day of moving out of the old library building. Now it looks like a redwood it is so huge, and I cannot bend it, and alcohol taken internally will not numb the pain.

A library board member caught me from falling completely and saved the printer.

I blame the Library Director, if she hadn't made me sign the waiver of liability for injury. . . .