Day: August 29, 2018

It’s no fun getting hit by a car. I can tell you that from personal experience, having been hit by one back in 1959 while crossing the street to get to the Grammer school. It’s was foggy that morning and I stepped out in front of Bo Brown…a HS Senior who was turning into the parking lot. It knocked me about 15 feet through the air and cut open big gashes in both of my knees. I was lucky that’s all it did!

Poor old Bo…God rest his soul, he bounded out of that car and carried me to the hospital which was only a block away back then. It scared me, but I know it scared him more. I’ve had knee problems off and on for years since then. They still ache some cold winter days.

Tonight, coming back from Walmart I turned onto Simmons Street. There were tons of cars at the track field, lots of little kid football practice going on… and I remembered how bad it felt to get hit by a car. I slowed way down. Sure enough a little feller darted right out between two cars in front of me. I had plenty of time to stop as I was going so slow, and it wasn’t even close. “I guess everything happens for a reason” I thought as I rolled down the window and hollered: “Hey boy, you look both ways next time!” It hurts to get hit by a car. I Know!

The days of Summer are numbered. The only thing left in the garden is Okra and a few scraggly tomatoes growing up too high for the bugs to get. The mosquitoes are so bad that they looked like a veritable cloud around my poor little dog when she went outside this evening. You can’t walk around town without slathering yourself in a ton of “off” So…I’ll trade the last of the fresh Okra to get rid of the mosquitoes.

Perhaps an early frost this year? An early end to the “dog days” of the Summer of 2014. Usually the first frost is very close to my birthday…which is October 21, but I definitely would not mind a good hard, white hoar frost much sooner. I love them. I love the crisp, snapping, hot Apple cider, make a pot of chili days, which start out in the mornings with a white icy ground and ease up into the mid 60’s by afternoon, with a bright warming Autumn sun in the sky.

I love those days. The ones where you wear a sweatshirt but not a coat, and you see the kids out tossing around a football. The ones where the wind kicks up little whirlwinds of red, orange, brown and yellow leaves. The smell of somebody off somewhere in the distance burning a pile of those same dry leaves. The sunsets which are bright and clear with a few streaks of purple… oh how sweet and precious are those days. More valuable to me than piles of gold or diamonds.

I want to be even more aware of the wonderful days of Fall this year. I want to notice how blazing Orange the pumpkins are at Halloween, and how wonderful my wife’s Thanksgiving dressing smells and tastes. And then I want to see the little one’s eyes light up at Christmas when they tear into their gifts. I want to hold my new granddaughter, and smell the fresh newness of her life.

I never took the days of Autumn for granted. Even as a child I knew they were something special. The first poem I ever wrote was about the beauty of a special Fall day. The first song I played on my guitar and sang to was “Autumn Leaves” ” ….the falling leaves, drift by my window, the autumn leaves of red and gold…”

And so I hope for an early fall, an idyllic fall, a peaceful fall, a loving fall, a prosperous fall and a memorable fall. Not just for myself, but for all of us who need one right now so very badly. For those of us who have already seen more of them than we will ever see in the years ahead.

A taste of simplicity, a smell of memory, a sight of loveliness, a sound of familiarity and the feel of hope…for the future of all mankind. An Autumn of change..and not just in the weather.

In the reserve of human emotions which we all contain, sweetness is not seen as often as it should be seen, by any means. We commonly misuse the meaning of the word.

Sweetness is to be pleasant, marked by good humor or kindliness, as in having a “sweet disposition”.

I’ve known a lot of sweet people in the past, and we all know that babies are “sweet” but I am getting kind of worried about the good humor and kindliness portion of the dictionary’s definition. I know I don’t qualify as sweet….certainly. But , I distinctly remember a lot more sweet people comprising our populace in years gone by. You’d meet them everywhere.

Now…..well, in the scheme of things now, in the current state of our country and our world, I am hoping genetically speaking that having a sweet disposition is a dominant genetic trait.