Button-up time is here. Or, if you prefer, hunker-down time. Take your pick, up or down. We've fallen back on the clock, springing ahead is months down the road. Trick or treating is over. It's time to get ready to hibernate, the annual rite of fall.

We all have our off-season to-do list. The list is long. In truth, there are two lists. One is the long list of things that should be done. The second is a shorter list, much shorter, of things that will be done. It's a matter of priorities, or as it is now fashionable to say, of prioritizing. What that means is much better said in the old-fashioned expression: first things first.