AUTUMN SURVIVAL...MY WAY!

***********************************************************************************
BIRDS OF PREY

When I went outside to do some much needed weeding, I didn't realize that one of these feathered beasts sat on a lamp post across the street.  It sprang forth with a wing span unlike any I've ever seen on a flying creature. It landed on a neighbor's roof and sat by itself absorbing the rays on this crisp fall day.  I ran inside to get the camera, and when I returned there were three of them...and those suckers were BIG!  I guess I didn't look as full of life as I thought or felt...and with my aging attention span, not much weeding got done after that...
 

A MAGIC DAY

Halloween.  There - I said it...and it didn't hurt.  It used to be a bad word in my brain.  It meant the angst of our finding or making costumes for the four children.  It meant hastily putting up some insincere ornaments on the day of trick-or-treat, and taking them down as the last of the little ones came to get their bounty. It meant the hasting of my then thirty something body around countless blocks of neighborhood just to keep up with our children.  It meant the sugar highs and lows of the same children....
This year, though, something happened.  A week before Halloween (there, I said it again, and it still didn't hurt!) I started playing outside with lights and artificial cobwebs that stuck to everything, including me, and I thought of those little faces we guided through the holiday, and how cute they looked in their costumes, and how excited they got when they reached each door screaming Trick-or-treat.  Before I knew it, I had a smile on my face thinking about Halloween.  The mediocre display of 2013 seemed awesome to the little masked trick-or-treaters' eyes, and Halloween was a success.  This year, the ornaments didn't come down until the next day...  

FALL'S DECAY

The green of summer, turned to gold
Red and orange, bursting bold
Soon the brown, then the cold
Early dark, feeling glum
Eyes fatigued, spirits numb
Wishing new green life would come


AUTUMN'S RAY

1

3

2

The poignant light brought on by grandchildren:  1 Watching our granddaughter sit and smile with her Grandma, 2 watching her smile and play on the floor once occupied by her father and his brothers and sister, and finally, 3 knowing that I can still guide the new generation, MY grandchildren, on their Halloween trek around Grandma and Grandpa's neighborhood and live to tell about it.....

DAD'S FORTE

Being Dad...The saddest and the happiest thing about this

October is the celebration of the 90th birthday

of this gentle soul, whose forte was being Dad. This was the man who could pick up a book: a technical book, a how-to book, War and Peace, or even the most difficult of textbooks, and read it and understand it, and help each of us, his children, with our homework. This is the man who chauffered his driver's license-less wife, my mother, to wherever she needed to be whenever she needed to be there without a grumble for all those years. Isn't it typical and

sad that I appreciate him more with each

passing moment, and emulate him when I am aware of my actions. The gathering to celebrate

Dad's birthday every year was a

testament to his command of his role as a

family man, and his family, once a

year, celebrated him with hugs, presents,

and one of Mom's Italian cream cakes.
I hope Mom made him one this year, and

 there's a party going

on up there just like old times!

MOM'S BIG DAY

Happy Birthday, Mom!  Today we celebrate this lady on what would have been her 89th birthday.  In this picture, a spunky 86 year old followed us around Philadelphia's Temple University for my daughter Karen's graduation.  At dinnertime, Mom showed no wear as we celebrated.  This is a testament to her legacy. Complications from Chronic Lymphoma would steal her from us and this Earth just six weeks later.  The glue, the meal provider, the cake baker, the one that didn't let me get away with anything, the one who was there for all of us, the Mom...I hope the party is still going on and someone is serving her...


SEASON'S ASSAY

My Jackie took this and calls it a picture of a pensive author.  Maybe she's right.  In the life of me, it is natural for the mood to decline in the autumn.  The evolution of summer's laid back livelihood into autumn's anxiety is unavoidable.  The loss of leaves on the trees is a metaphor for life's losses and disappointments.  As in any man's life, there are highs and lows.  It is through grace that I survive the low moments with hope that in the future, tomorrow, or even in a few minutes, I return to swimming instead of drowning.  Feeling the lows, and then feeling the joy as my family comes home again with the warm memories of ones lost safely tucked behind that joy...and not in the forefront...is my survival.

AUTUMN SURVIVAL: MY WAY

********************************************************************************************

OCTOBER OPTIMISM

The snares and cares were miles away on this summer-like October Saturday, and for a short time...

• The PC was idle
• The uncut grass was just a nutritious feast for the creatures and would still be there on Sunday and Monday
• The government officials were frantically working out their differences and a solution was found
• The media ignored the jerks, the twerps, and the twerks....and honor, dignity, and talent were in the spotlight again
• Entertainment became entertaining again
• Kids ran and played sans an electrical outlet or battery
• Hard work was rewarded, no work had consequences 
• Cold, wind, floods, and snow just didn't matter
• Doctors and dentists fixed what was wrong, and if it 'weren't broke', it didn't get fixed
• As my wife sat next to me, our heads cleared preparing us for our next day of routine
• As my grownup little girl sat on the other side of me, I once again protected her from the cities and the highways
• The word tax, as a noun and as a verb, didn't exist
• Communication moved as slowly and gently as the ripples of the Chesapeake, paving the way for truth and destroying speculation
• Occasional face-to-face conversation was the new constant texting

...as I sat at the water's edge with my wife and daughter, I took the calm of the Chesapeake on a summer-like October Saturday afternoon and sprinkled it over the world, destroying haste, angst, complication, and hate...

Expect the Honest to Goodness Unexpected!

For an introductory lesson with a new group in one of my classes, I gave the kids a graphic organizer asking them about their families, their favorite subjects in school, their favorite books, their favorite things to do outside of school, and what their goals were.  The lesson was flawless. All the students were eager to talk about themselves and to hear a little bit about me. All was fine until the end when one of the boys shared that his goal was to stop picking his nose. I expected to hear a chorus of "Ewww!" after this one. Instead, the rest of the group showed him some support by saying, " Yea, that's a good one for you!" Then one of the group members looked at me and stated, "He really does need to make that his goal!" It just proves to me that even after fifteen years of being an at-home Dad to four kids of my own, and equal time in the education system, when I'm with kids, I need to expect the honest to goodness unexpected!