Skip to main content

Happy Halloween?

All Saints Day. Halloween. It makes no difference, we are talking about dead people. The saints, not the football team from New Orleans, Lousiana, but the hallowed people of the Catholic Church., who were lucky enough to be acting in a holy and often heroic manner when the right people were watching. Oh did I mention, being a member of the Catholic Church is mandatory? I don't believe anyone in the waiting room making out an application for membership, who was whipped, raped or burned at the stake for their faith while waiting for their membership card, ever became a saint.

Halloween, it is said, might have been invented by a candy company, but I think that is just nasty gossip started by Hallmark, who was angry because no one got into the habit of sending their friends Halloween cards.

It was actually created and popularized by Goodwill Industries. They were seeking new markets for the boatloads of donated old clothing, they can't get rid of through their stores. Alas, their efforts spawned a competitive business. It's the costume in a bag product, from third world countries whose employees haven't a clue what anyone would do with the costumes they make.

If someone comes to your door for a trick or a treat wearing an old pair of men's pants with suspenders, a tattered white dress shirt, a beat-up fedora and sticks with a checkered handkerchief tied onto the end, they are costumed as a hobo. They are dressed to invoke pity and compassion for young millennials with legal degrees and huge school loan debt, whose parents have thrown their adult children out of their homes. Two mini candy bar rule should be dropped for these kids. And for God sake, let them help themselves. They did not turn the American dream into a nightmare.

Speaking of a nightmare, Our quarterback broke his collarbone.

We went from a period of above normal temperatures back to seasonal temperatures. That is accompanied by a serious change in outdoor activities. The transition from golf to raking leaves is not only difficult because it requires a different muscle set, but one is fun, and the other is work.

Fall is a season of shifting winds. What is difficult about leave raking is that inevitably you have to rake the same leaves more than once. You get them in one place in a pile and the wind shifts and blows them into your neighbor's yard. It's only fair that you have a moment of selfish pleasure, as you contemplate that the leaves are now his problem. That lasts until the wind shifts again and blows your leaves and his back onto your lawn.

What makes leaf harvesting even a more depressing as opposed to golf, aside from the physical effort, (See Above)? There are a couple of things to consider. Golf can be fun. Leaf harvesting will never be fun, except for kids who like to dive into the piles and play. They are far too young to be told that someday they are going to have to rake them into piles for their kids. In fact, you should wait until after the discussion about procreation before this disappointment is passed on.

The other difference is that you can, theoretically, get better at golf. Ignore the taunts of your regular playing partners, you can improve.  You can never get better at leaf harvesting. Yes, leaf blowers are physically easier to operate than a 48-inch wide sweep rake, but it's still leaf harvesting. What it's not is a 12-foot putt snaking across green grass and falling in the hole.


From the multicolored fall landscape that surrounds Camp Jeff, this is Poppa Jeff wishing you well.

PS: Did I mention our Quarterback broke his collarbone?



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Diversity

As we look forward to celebrating the Pride we have in our Gay population, (Yeah, I couldn't resist the pun.) I'm pleased to report that diversity in the mix of our residents here in the Fox River Valley continues to surprise me. Example: As my wife and I waited for friends, in the lobby of the Marcus Hollywood Theater on the west side of Appleton, I witnessed three AfricanAmericann ladies buying snacks. Behind them was a Latino couple. At the end of the line, behind was an Asian fellow with three kids. We represented the WASP's. This is in a community that when I first visited in the nineteen sixties, if a black man walked down the street, he more than likely played football for Green Bay. After that, there was a rather pronounced immigration of Hmong and quieter arrival of Latino's. For a while, the worst keep secret was that the new Italian restaurant was actually owned by Mexican's. Since returning to the Valley, I've grown use...

A rustle in the hustings

I am trying to stay away from politics on my blog. I know that some of my intended readers do not share my feelings. As well, I don't entice dialogue. Occasionally my readers will address something I've written about. For the most part, they are merely saying something like, "Oh yeah, I felt that way too," regarding some experience, that I related. However, I have to share these particular feelings about the new Ryan Healthcare proposal that is sailing through the House of Representatives. Market-driven healthcare provision: This concept proposes that if put on the free market health care insurance will become more affordable. The theory is there will be competition among insurers to gain market share and lowering the prices will be a possible outcome. None of the insurers want customers who are old people or people with a pre-existing health problem ( heart disease, cancer, etc...) Older people, who are not on medicare, have more health care ne...

I Can See The End Of The Road

 Pam and I have been working from home on the line by line edit of my novel 26 Women . When we work, she is at home looking at the latest draft I've emailed her and I'm at home looking at the same version.  It's like being back in one of Marshall Cook's gatherings. Marshall ran the Writers Institute in Madison for a number of years. Participants would come with a short piece and exchange them with the others. He would moderate a discussion of the entries that would allow the writers to get input on their work. It's always interesting how readers will misunderstand the brilliance of your writing. Or put another way, how your writing will defy explanation.  Pam will ask me some form of the question, "What are you trying to say here?" We usually ended up rewriting a word, sentence, or paragraph. Only occasionally, the work would stand scrutiny and remain unchanged. I also seem to go into a coma using commas. I tend to sprinkle them like fairy dust in hopes th...