One of the 10,000 or so things that I am interested in is radios. Old ones, new ones, working ones, non-working ones, it doesn't matter. I occasionally pick up an older radio at flea markets or on eBay I see something that I am interested in or otherwise just looks unique.
Something I don't have but would be interested in acquiring at some point is an aqua blue Bakelite radio.
Here's an interesting point to this post: I don't actually listen to the radio anymore. Not even satellite radio, even though I have a subscription that runs through July 2022. Part of this is because I have other things that have taken the place of radio, including various and sundry (with apologies for the double adjectives) online things. The latest thing, by the way, is an Amazon Echo Show, which I purchased for Ms. Rivers as a Christmas present. Note "purchased for her"...I liked hers so much that I bought one for myself.
Back to the old-school stuff.
The radio in my small collection that I like the most is a GE BlueMax. In fact, I have two of them:
The radio on the left is in perfect working condition. On the right? It's looking slightly rough, and I mostly got it for parts. The Blue Max is my favorite because we had one when I was growing up, and I recall huddled by it with my brothers on Christmas Eve listening to Santa updates on AM radio. Anyway, you can read more about the Blue Max HERE. Current prices on eBay for the Blue Max are running north of $50; for one in perfect condition (such as one of mine), I'd think it's probably worth about $75-$85, not that I would ever sell.
The best-sounding radio I own? That would be a tie between my not-so-old Tivoli Audio Henry Kloss Model One...
...and the Bose Acoustic Wave Music III unit that use for my computer audio. I would note that a close second would be one of my early 1970's Sony table radios.
So what is it about radios that I find so appealing? As referenced above about the Blue Max, I think it's more about a connection to the past. Back in those days, it seems like radios (and many other things) were just more important. In a day and age where most of us upgrade cellphones every two or so years, radios were more of a permanent thing. Having a radio was important...it was a 6-year-old's portal to the larger world in 1970. That was a simpler world, for sure.
In 2022 most of us have cellphones that provide an instant connection to the collective knowledge of the known universe via the Internet. That's a far cry for 1970. I'm not suggesting that things in 1970 were better, but they were different. I somehow doubt that 50 years from now, folks will have my kind of emotional connection to, say, an iPhone 8.
In one of his final interviews,
John Lennon was asked about which of his songs he liked the best. He thought about it, mentioned a title or
two, but the final answer was actually pretty surprising: “Help” Now if you are not all that familiar
with the Beatles, “Help “ comes from a movie of the same name and is decidedly
in the Beatles mop-top era, not long after songs such as “She Loves You” and
“Hard Day’s Night”. Not exactly a time
of lyrical poetry and deep meanings. The
fact that Lennon has written some pretty weighty stuff…think, for example,
“Imagine”…is what makes “Help” such a surprising choice. When asked why he made this choice, Lennon
responded that “Help” is one of his most honest songs, and while writing it he
really was asking for help.
All of the above occurs at a time when (and maybe still is,
to a great extent) men actually asking for help was considered to be a sign of
weakness. In answering the interviewer’s
question, Lennon once again gave us an example of why he really was a
genius. “Across the Universe” could have
been his choice and that would cause few to give any kind of pause, as it
really is a great song. But Lennon picked
the simple but honest choice instead.
The point is that asking for help is hard. Damn hard for many, especially men. Yet in the here and now, with so much turmoil
in the world and in the lives of many folks, many of us may need help more than
ever before. Personally, I have…and
still do…have trouble asking for help.
The mere thought of it conjures up a bevy of responses swirling about in
my head:
“If I ask for help someone is going to think I am not competent”
“What if they say no? I will
feel embarrassed”
“If I ask for help I am going to owe someone”
“No one really wants to help me anyway”
“Smart people don’t ask for
help”
“Weak people ask for help”
At least for me, part of the equation is the fact that
growing up, asking for help was a crapshoot with my mother. I just never knew if I would get help or get
criticized for asking for it in the first place. Things like that have a very, very long
shelf-life in our heads. The easier
thing, again at least for me, is to just do whatever I have to do in order to
get through things on my own. Maybe, in
some small way, this is part of what Lennon was tapping into when he talked
about “Help” being among his favorite musical creations. Even writing this is a bit uncomfortable for
me, but Lennon goes and writes a hit song about it. Up until reading that interview, I never
would have guessed that the song “Help” was an actual cry for help. I just thought it was just a great song.
The genius of John Lennon and this song was his ability to
hide vulnerability in plain sight, broadcasting it for the entire world to see,
but yet most didn’t actually see what it truly meant. He turned a bunch of complex thoughts and
emotions and crafted them into a song that was then disguised as a pop-music
hit.
“When I was younger, so much younger than today, I never needed
anybody’s help in any way”
All of the above reinforces something I’ve learned to be
very true about people and intelligence:
Anyone can spew complex-sounding stuff, but truly smart people…the
geniuses among us…are able to take the complex and make it simple. And hide it right under our noses.
Most of the time when I think about the new year, my
thoughts gravitate towards what I want to do, what plans I need to make, and
how I somehow want to re-engineer my life in small and big ways. Not so much for 2022. If recent years have taught us anything, it’s
that we are not always masters of our own destiny.
Like many, I think I am decidedly in the camp of “just get
through it” when I think about 2022.
“Get through it” as in trying to stay healthy and hope that others are able
to do the same. That’s equal parts sad
and realistic as we collectively stare down another year of COVID and the
prospect that this disease may never really leave us, in spite of our best
efforts.
Side note here: “…in
spite of our best efforts” is a bit of a misnomer on many different
levels. All you need to do is go into
any store in most parts of Pennsylvania, for example, and you will see that
“best efforts” when it comes to COVID are basically non-existent. Some folks simply stopped trying. Some folks never tried in the first
place. Trying would include the highly
difficult and complex tasks of wearing a mask in public, getting vaccinated, and
avoiding large crowds. I was being
sarcastic with that last sentence by the way, as none of those things are
actually complex or difficult; rather they require compassion and thought, two
things that tend to be in short supply among some stressed humans.
Looking at 2022, it’s pretty realistic for us to admit that our
lives may be in a kind of holding pattern, waiting for something to give. As noted above though, this may never
give. We may have to collectively change
some fundamental things about what and how we do things. For some, that’s thought-provoking. For others, it is a nightmare. Squarely in the nightmare camp are all of those
individuals who already have been put in a state of dismay because of changing
national (and world) demographics and culture.
I can easily see why, for example, someone who feels that two men who
love each other and want to get married are somehow a threat to them also views
wearing a mask in a grocery store as some form of capitulation to Satan. These are the same people who parrot anti-vaccine
rhetoric from some dark corner of the Internet but then are in shock and
distraught when a loved one spends 30+ days in a hospital, clinging to life
via a ventilator. As noted in the prior
paragraph, sometimes compassion and thought are scarce qualities.
It’s worth remembering that every generation is full of
people who want to deny change, who want to “go back to the way it was”. We have an entire region of the country that,
for more than 150 years, tried to deny the outcome of the American Civil
War. These days are different though, as
we have social media with a global reach, so the most ridiculous voices among
us have basically the same megaphone as the most rational. This is the world that has given us Alex
Jones, and we are much worse for it. The
challenge of 2022 is whether or not the loudest voices belong to the
compassionate or the compassionless. The
added burden here is the fact that the compassionless are sometimes adept at painting villains as heroes, empathy as a sin, facts as fiction, and TV
reality. This includes every single
televangelist who spreads an America-first prosperity “gospel”.
Getting back to me, (well, technically we never left me), I
do have some goals, but they are a bit down the road. COVID or not, I want to get through the year,
maybe pick up a few better habits, and not manage to screw anything up in the
process. Finding some peace at work
would be nice too. Not repeating any
mistakes would be a plus. Five or six
years down the road there will be some more monumental changes, so 2022 can be
just okay. And sometimes “just okay” is
good enough. My standards may be low,
but these are challenging times.
Here’s to everyone having a happy and (hopefully healthy) New
Year.
I really don’t like dwelling on things like the subject of
this posting, but it feels like the right thing to do at this moment. The “things like this” is the passing of my
brother Chris, who I found deceased on January 5, 2017. I’ve written about Chris before, and while I
try to not repeat myself too often, I’m granting some discretion today.
To this very day, part of me has a hard time understanding
why Chris is gone. While I don’t have
the kind of “I was going to call him but then realized he’s not here” moments
that others in similar circumstances experience, I instead have a myriad of
small reminders that he is not here.
These mostly come at me in a kind of random fashion, where I’ll think of
something and then imagine what Chris’ reaction would be. God, I miss his sense of humor. We both had a kind of absurd sense of what
was funny, although, in fairness to Chris, he was always willing to take things
much further than I ever would or could.
That last sentence is just a function of my having to seemingly mature
in different directions than Chris did, although there are those who will tell
you with a completely straight face (mostly my daughters and my wife) that I
haven’t actually matured all that much.
Growing up, we were all a year apart in age, so we did a lot
together. I will note that it was a bit
tougher for Chris, as I tended to do more stuff with my brother Rich, but those
kinds of degrees are tough to measure.
The years between childhood and fully-formed adulthood took us in
different directions. He went into the
Navy right out of high school, mostly, I suspect because of two things:
·Lurid tales shared by Navy recruiters of far-off
exotic women eager to meet young American sailors, and…
·…he knew that he needed the kind of discipline
in his life that couldn’t be found in too many places other than the armed
forces.
In the year before he passed away, Chris and I talked a few
times about his experiences in the Navy.
In those conversations, I think the personal demons he was desperately
trying to confront sometimes manifest themselves in some traumatic memories
from his service. As someone who worked
in the medical field in the Navy, Chris told me he saw a lot of disturbing
things. I never once doubted him,
although I have wondered if these things were more symbolic of the other issues
he was trying to deal with as he moved into his 50’s. Regardless of the cause(s), I genuinely
believe that my brother was in pain, and he spent an inordinate amount of time
in the year or three before his death trying to self-medicate his way into some
kind of peace. Sometimes the
pain…physical and/or emotional…is so great that we just want it to stop and
we’ll basically do anything to make that happen.
In addition to a similar sense of humor, I think Chris and I
both spent a lot of time searching for some way to deal with the difficulties
of our mutual childhood. In my case,
that meant diving head-first into college, then a career, and then a family, all
in short order. That kept me busy and my
mind off of other things. Chris, having
served his term in the Navy, had to find his own way to manage life. For him, that also meant an early marriage and
a daughter that he absolutely adored.
Chris, having been an amateur boxer, always however seemed keen on the
fight, which never really interested me, physical or otherwise. I found (to this very day) that most forms of
confrontation are counter-productive.
Chris thought the opposite, and many times those confrontations had
something to do with our mother. As I
have noted before (probably), our mother’s passing in 2013 impacted Chris
deeply. He would never admit that when
he was alive, by the way, but I am as sure of that as I can possibly be of
anything. With our mother gone, the
boxer (Chris) no longer had an opponent in the ring. The thing he could point to as a concrete
reason for this inner turmoil was gone, and all that was left was in fact the
turmoil, unabated and running rampant.
He no longer had an opponent, so the opponent became himself.
In the years after his passing, I spent a lot of time trying
to understand what happened to my brother.
I’ll confess that I can’t really offer much in the way of actual
understanding though. I don’t understand
why somehow we had the same upbringing (we were both “…a poor boy…”) but yet we
had such different outcomes. I don’t
understand why he just couldn’t be somehow stronger...I always felt he was, in
many ways, stronger than I was, so why am I the one still here? I don’t understand the appeal to things that
were harmful. In totality, a part of me
just doesn’t understand why he isn’t here now.
Selfishly, well this whole posting is selfish, I always had
this vision that in his retirement years Chris would be mostly free of his
demons and that we would spend more time together. We could celebrate the fact that we both
reached our retirement years in spite of seeming to start from three steps
behind and four doors down. That’s never
to be though, and it’s just so hard to imagine someone like a sibling just not
being here anymore. On some level, I just
assumed he would survive, since that’s what I was doing, and as noted above, in
some ways I always thought Chris was tougher than I ever was anyway. You can add that to the list of
contradictions in this screed. Yes, the
tough guy, the boxer, was the one who didn’t survive; instead, the introspective
one who never really felt all that comfortable around other people…but yet has
made a career out of interacting with them (me)…did. It makes no sense, but then again a death like
that of my brother is never going to make sense. My cross, if you want to call it that, is the
fact that I am forever doomed to try and figure this all out.
So, what’s left? Well, January 5th will never really be a good day for me. And I wish Chris were still here. That’s pretty much what’s left.
* * * * * *
I wrote and delivered the eulogy at Chris’ funeral, and it
quoted the Paul Simon song “The Boxer” because part of that story, including “I
am just a poor boy…” and “in the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his
trade…” really is my late brother, both practically and metaphorically.
They are, for all intense and purposes, broken. Yet with the help of some tape, a hot glue gun, and some patience, they manage to soldier on. As do many of us I think.
Just as a side note, I do have another, newer pair of glasses, but I prefer not to wear them. That's for both practical and stubborn reasons...
...practically speaking, I just prefer my old glasses. They weigh next to nothing, and the reality is that I just don't see well.
...the stubborn part of me is still not happy that I was talked (yet again) into buying my new glasses in the first place.
To that second point, that's been something of an ongoing theme with my eye care provider. That's on my list of things to work on in 2022.
Anyway, 2021 was a difficult year (thank you Captain Obvious), something that many of us can say with some surety. I wrote that last sentence without having had anyone I know succumbing to COVID, and my heart goes out to those who did lose loved ones in 2021. COVID has been particularly cruel in 2021, if for no other reason than the fact that it seemed like we collectively were starting to get past it. COVID had different ideas though, and in the end, I think this linear flow of "beginning...middle...end" isn't going to apply here. We may never end this, and as frustrating as that sounds, it's a reality we need to be prepared to face.
For me, and for many others, there has been plenty of collateral damage coming from COVID in 2019. Physically I just don't feel as well. I've gained too much weight, and I am not nearly active enough. If I were a car, I'd be running at about 110,000 miles, and that comes with all the required maintenance and things to repair that just happen when the years miles begin to pile up. The good news is that I can make some changes in that department. Of course, things would be easier if there was a bit more stability in one key part of my life.
That last sentence is my professional life, and the signs are hopeful. I confess that I've been trying to unlearn a few things over this past year. Things like...
...the need to be in charge
...defining success based on other people's measures
...blaming myself for not being successful enough (something that I can't actually define)
...comparing myself to others & engaging in countless "what if's"
This sounds so simple, but yet it is so very, very hard. A lot of it boils down to the simple to say, but hard to actually define (and make happen) idea of "I just want to be happy". At 57 years one would think that I would have a better handle on that, but I readily confess that I don't. And I may never will. But I'll keep trying.
"And we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun..." (John Lennon, Instant Karma)
It's Christmas, and as
has been the case for a while now, I'm just not quite sure what to write.
That or the fact that I actually do have a lot to say, but it's just that I
can't seem to get the words out. Either explanation isn't all that great,
and to some extent, I think I am all the worse for it. Anyway, I'm going
to try.
This Christmas, most of
us are busy contemplating how we can celebrate a holiday and at the same time
not add our names to the global list of COVID-19 victims. Not that I live
in fear of such things but living in reality more or less dictates that this is
a kind of commonality that spans all of us who have the capability of rational
thought. That last sentence sounds more philosophical than intended,
here's a more down-to-Earth statement: It simply sucks that people are dying,
others are sick, and some of us can't see family members because of this
horrible pestilence. The very public face of me tries really damn hard to
be the strong, rational, and realistic one. Deep inside though, I just
wish I could see all of my daughters this Christmas.
On a positive note, my
oldest daughter made a more or less surprise trip home from New York City,
which means that I was 2 for 3 in the Christmas family reunion department.
As I write this, the
visitors have gone, and a day that seems like it spanned 48 hours is quickly
coming to an end. While it was a long day, I didn't take the time to take many
pictures this Christmas, although it was nice to see so many others posting
holiday photos on Facebook. I think so many are just trying to get back
to some sense of normalcy while things this Christmas are no more normal than
they were a year ago. At some point this will just be the new normal.
(Oren helps open gifts)
The whole "new
normal" thing can be disconcerting, but I think it's important to remember
that things were always going to change. All that's different is the
timing. This isn't to dismiss or otherwise minimize a global pandemic and
putting aside the human toll of illness and death for a moment, what COVID has
done is to create a kind of accelerated change. This is all the more
reason to create new things...new rituals...that make sense in a world that is
going to be permanently different.
On that note, my
thoughts fall back to the year that has passed. That's another post for
another day though. For now, I think it's time for all of us to get some
rest.
This is a hard, hard time for many, so I fully understand (not that my opinion here matters that much) how difficult Thanksgiving can be. We are all surrounded by messaging that tells us to "count our blessings" and "give thanks for all that we have". I've been there, in that place, where it was nearly impossible to see those things in the face of troubles surrounding me. That last sentence comes with the enormous caveat that what I've experienced by way of "trouble" firmly falls into the category of first-world problems...as in I have not wanted for food or shelter. Yet, I've also looked at a mental ledger with what seemed like more debits and credits. "Happy Thanksgiving" was akin to rubbing salt in a wound.
With age comes wisdom though. I think. If not age, well then maybe with persistence.
Part of the problem here, as I see it, is that in the United States we have this knack for monetizing virtually everything. In order to make money off of Thanksgiving, this nation creates a kind of white-bread, Hallmark Channel version of a holiday that in part serves to kick off a season of consumption. Note that nothing screams "thanks" quite like buying things. That last sentence was sarcasm, for the record.
Maybe the better thing to do here is to think less about visuals of golden turkeys and made-for-cable movies about troubled people magically finding reasons for thanks at the end of two hours. We don't need the idealizing of a perfect Thanksgiving...or a perfect life for that matter. This is because none of us have those things. None of us. As was pointed out to me online recently, the grass may be greener on the other side of the fence because it's actually astroturf.
I think that Thanksgiving works best when it works simplest. Part is this is manifest by acknowledging our challenges while also being thankful for the fact that every day we wake up we have a chance to get it right. Getting it right can be hard, nasty business by the way, but we are all capable. All of us.
This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for the gift of persistence.
I have this posting about Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in my head, but then I saw this on an actual Facebook page.
Like roadkill or other unsightly things, I just had to stop and look at this for a few moments. By the way, this is, I absolutely assure you, a real sentiment expressed on two different Facebook pages. In other words, there are people who believe this to be true. And it is horrifying.
I'm not going to refute this, mostly for the same reason that I don't feel the need to refute accusations that gravity is fake, the Earth is flat, and/or that we are all just living in the matrix. No humor was attempted or intended in that last statement by the way because there is nothing funny about these kinds of anti-vaccine sentiments. Whether it comes from a Russian social media troll farm or the imagination of some grossly ignorant conspiracy theorist, the net result is the same: This kind of thing can get people killed.
There is, of course, a larger story here. A story about how, as a nation, we've made it okay to be stupid. We've created an environment where 5 sentences of completely made-up nonsense is somehow the equal of the hard work put in by scientists and medical professionals around the world. In our desire to make everyone feel good, I fear, we've somehow managed to convince a subset of the population that they are as smart as the entire Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When you think about it though, all of us...even the people that believe the nonsense spewed in the above 5 sentences...have to rely on other experts. Do these same people decry the supposed "experts" who change their brake pads?
Yes, we all need to exercise critical thinking skills, so I'm not suggesting that we believe everything we see, hear and read. But a part of critical thinking is the acknowledgment that a "fact" is only as valid as evidence provided in support. Critical thinking also requires work, which I suspect is the real problem here...for some, it's simply easier to believe nonsense. It must also make some folks feel special that they now know about the "vaccine conspiracy". In essence, this becomes a kind of mental cotton candy: Nominally food, but having no real substance or value.
Here's to a month that has passed. There was a funeral to attend, but it comes on the heels of the deceased, a truly good person, having truly earned an eternal rest. It seems that October will always exact its toll on life, one way or another.
As for me, well, this is a long weekend in Hagerstown, Maryland. It was supposed to be a long weekend in St. Augustine, Florida, but circumstances changed those plans. Based on flooding in that part of Florida, and an airline system that can best be described as being "in distress", I'd say that those plans were changed for the better. Whether it was Florida or Maryland, both Ms. Rivers and I have earned some time away.
Why Hagerstown, Maryland? I guess the better question is probably "why not?". After deciding to 86 our Florida plans about a week or so ago, we bandied about a few other options for travel, and figured that Hagerstown was close enough, we hadn't been there, and we probably wouldn't encounter any snow. Not that the snow part was likely to be anywhere we could have gone, but there's (s)no(w) sense taking any chances. For the record, there isn't all that much to actually do in Hagerstown, which is mostly okay with us, as the destination is actually less important than just the notion of just getting away.
How are you doing?
I've never asked that question before in a blog posting, For the record, as of October 27th, this blog is now 13 years old. I'd like to add "...and going strong" to that date, but that wouldn't be very honest of me. It's been difficult to write consistently for a while now. I think that's mostly been because of the career turmoil I've experienced for years now, virtually all of which was not my making. Whether any of us like to admit it or not, the fact is that what we do with our time in order to earn a living is important. In this western, American culture of ours, the notion of career has an outsized level of importance for certain. Part of that is what has driven the United States for over two hundred years. Sadly though, I could rightfully argue that the cost for many has been far, far too high.
It's the oversized importance of a career that I've been thinking a lot about over the past few months. The fact is this: It is the struggle (at home or at work) that helps us grow. It's in facing adversity that we gain the ability to be resilient. There just aren't too many shortcuts around that avenue in life. Playing it too safe results in a certain degree of comfort that ultimately, I think, leaves us empty. Granted, there can be too much struggle in our lives, especially when it comes to what we do for a living. In my case, while I am grateful for all of the adversity that I have had to face in my professional life, in some instances I think the lessons could have been learned with just a bit less pain. I suppose that's the case for many of us...or at least those who have taken a few chances.
The above mental wandering comes courtesy of the fact that I think I am in a good place now career-wise. I couldn't have arrived here though without some roto-stripping of ego and my own preconceived notions of what constitutes success. Nowadays my definition of success is decidedly simple: I don't hate going to work & the people I work with seem to appreciate what I bring to the table. Helping matters is the fact that I have settled in my head the fact that I have no ladder left to climb. Simply put, I'm just going to do my thing for the next few years to the best of my ability, and whatever happens, be it good, bad, or indifferent, well, it will be okay. I have a light at the end of the tunnel, if you will, in form of eventual retirement.
It's difficult to write the above. Why? Well my mind, "when it's good it's bad". That's a kind of short-hand way of noting that, as a pretty intense and observant child, I grew to become suspicious of any good times, as it probably meant something bad would be happening soon. On one hand, that's a hell of a way to keep oneself on his/her toes. On the other hand, well, it creates a kind of negative feedback loop where every bit of adversity comes with an "I told you so" mental tag line attached to it. Nowhere was that more on display than my "retirement" in 2016. It's taken me this long since then to really unpack some of these feelings and experiences and to arrive at this place where, to be blunt, I simply now choose to (mostly) not really care about negative people and experiences. In fact, I have the following statement stuck to the bottom of my laptop screen:
"Give no f#$ks about those who give no f#$ks about you."
Crude? For sure it is, but it has the benefit of being true. In the simplest possible terms, it seems that, in life, we have a limited supply of things to care about ("f#$ks"), so it's best to use these things where they can matter the most. Or so I am trying to learn.
As is the case for many of the important things in life, some of this weighty career-in-perspective stuff is much less about reaching a kind enlightenment goal and more about just engaging in a deliberate practice where I work on keeping things in perspective. In essence, there is no goal to achieve...that very notion is just more competitive business culture nonsense...and instead there is just a dedication to just trying my best to be a decent person to myself and to others.
As Jackson Browne once wrote: "And when the morning light comes streaming in, we'll get up and do it again."
On that note, I think I've said enough.
Tomorrow will likely be a trip to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. If believed in such things I would say that I'd like to encounter the spirit of John Brown. Since I don't (believe in such things), I'm going to instead settle for a nice drive, some wonderful Fall photographs, and maybe learning a thing or three.
By my reckoning, October is life's great equalizer. Rich or poor, powerful or powerless, October doesn't care. October is going to change the world, whether any of us like it or not, ultimately reminding us that we are not, in fact, in charge. I will readily confess to having a checkered past when it comes to the month of October. This is something that I can back-up with over a hundred blog postings on the subject of this month.
Anyway, in spite of past experiences...or maybe because of them...I admire what October stands for in the cycle of life.
(Our large pink rosebush needs a rest)
Life just gets tired, in part because nothing gets to last forever. All that happened in the Spring and Summer, all of that growth, comes at a cost. In order to eventually grow again, life needs to take a pause. October is that pause.
There are a bunch of other non-mock-philosophical reasons why I really want to love October.
First, I love the weather. The temperature is just right. There is nothing better than a cool October breeze, especially after a summer where winds were more like convection oven currents than cooling events.
Second, I confess to liking Halloween. Not necessarily the trick-or-treating part, but just this notion that for one day out of the year, the things that I found scary as a kid were somehow rendered temporarily powerless.
Third, there is just something wonderful about falling leaves. They have this kind of special smell, especially as you walk through them, shuffling your feet along the way.
Finally, I'm not the biggest fan of really cold winters, so October provides this kind of window that allows us to get ready for what's to come. For me that means getting the yard ready, trimming trees, and cleaning/putting things away.
Here's to hoping that all of us learn to appreciate October. Especially me.
