Should we do a little dance welcoming the new season? Yes, Fall has fallen yet again. The good news: We’re still here. The bad news: We no longer know what Autumn means.
Oh, some of the signs are there: Department stores starting to build Christmas displays next to the Halloween displays they put up back in July.
School is open. The garment trade is ready to show you what’s hot and what’s not for Spring. Election day is drawing closer. Soon we’ll be oohing and ahhing about the beautiful fall foliage or knarching about the lack of beautiful fall foliage.
Television’s fall season which used to start in September will soon begin, at least on those networks that still do seasons.
Football. The end of the baseball season. (Does it really ever end?)
Some radio station somewhere will feel compelled four or five times a day to play “Autumn Leaves,” the schmaltziest, corniest hit seasonal song ever written except for “Rudolph.”
Temperatures will drop into the 30s as climate change deniers point to “proof” we have nothing to worry about.
Climate change panickers using the same statistic will point to the difference between climate and weather.
In other words, all the man made trappings of Autumn have appeared or soon will as we continue to try and fool each other and ourselves into thinking we’re actually in control of something.
Notice, though, that in many parts of the country we didn’t have a summer. Yes… there was and is fire and no rain in parts of the country. But here in Civilization, not so much.
Before the Summer of No Summer, there was the Spring of no Spring.
So you didn’t remember to do your spring cleaning.
Now, we may be due for the Fall of no Fall. So maybe you’ll forget to do your yard work.
And probably, you should. When you clear a field of debris in your yard, you’ll find … something has gone wrong. Something requiring work. Something that will bust your budget. Something that wouldn’t have gone wrong and busted your budget if you had just left well enough alone.
Like your “underground” telephone or cable or electric wires are no longer underground, if they ever were deeper than “under debris.”
Or there’s a family of moles working their way toward your basement. And moles, as you know, have big families.
The season thing is confusing. It’s like we expect some kind of click and everything changes in an instant. It’s never worked that way, as you know when you think about it. It’s a slow fade.
Like most everything else. Meantime, don’t take it out on the Magic Piano of Roger Williams. He was just trying to make a buck when he recorded the song.
Shrapnel:
--It’s becoming tough to have a civil conversation about the middle east. Everyone has an answer. No one knows the question.
Grapeshot:
-Sundown this evening marks the start of the Jewish New Year, 5775, so happy new year and watch out for those DWI patrols.
-Maybe we should mark the occasion with disco in shul, remembering 1975.
-Oy vey. Oy vey. Stayin’ alive.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2014
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