When The Frost Is On the Punkin (James Whitcomb Riley)
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin' and the fodder’s in the shock.
Autumn Reverie
The frost isn’t quite on the punkin yet in these parts but the time is growing near. Early morning temperatures struggle to reach the seventies these days with a big drop into the forties expected for the weekend. The angel trumpets, Brugmansia to afficionados, have been saving their strength all year to blossom out for a spectacular few days and we applaud the results of their efforts. The grass in the paddocks has slowed its growth and the mowers will soon be put up for another year. Pumpkins, of course, are everywhere, bringing back memories of past football trips to Auburn over small country roads laden with beautiful stands of pumpkins. Halloween is near, attested to by the plethora of giant retail outlets which open just three months a year to service celebrants.
With November drawing near, it’s time for the mares, Dot and Wanda, to return from their weaning break and take up occupancy in the south paddock, a fiefdom ruled for the past year by Hurricane Zip, who is sure to be put out at the audacity of it all as he returns to smaller quarters adjacent to Juggernaut. Training starts in earnest now for the yearlings at Eisaman Equine, which includes our Bull Ensign, who is probably getting a little bored traversing the shedrow under tack and looking forward to bigger things. Cosmic Flash, same address, will get back to jogging soon, readying for a winter campaign. The better horses, Derby hopefuls among them, will begin to drift in to Gulfstream Park from the eastern half of the country to contend for honors during Florida’s best racing season.
November brings either happy or sad news, depending on how you look at it—another birthday for Bill, who is threatening to get very old—but who, at least, is still here and currently without menace. At this age, it’s a day to day proposition. Small health issues which would have been beneath notice in the past are more closely examined for threat of future expansion these days. Annual blood tests are pored over carefully for signs of regression. Many people, of course, just sigh and announce, “Ah well, when it’s my time to go, so be it.” Bill is not one of these people. Bill is not going anywhere without a struggle. Like the wiser football coaches, he is “taking it one game at a time.” So far, so good.
All Hail The Angel Trumpets!
Fastest Horse In The World With Fastest Human On Northwest 112th Avenue
Legends Of The Fall
With Autumn, of course, we get football, the college version long awaited over the past eight months by participants, fans and pretenders who just like to tailgate and drink. Some people, believe it or not, do not like football, and they are not all effete sissypants, lonely women or jealous males who lost their high-school sweethearts to the captain of the football team. Some people just abhor the violence of the game, the mentality it develops in its combatants, the resources schools devote to the program. Too bad for some people. First of all, nobody said you have to like football players to like football. Some of them undoubtedly are dazed brutes who think the Iliad is a flower their grandmother used to grow in her garden. Many of them are self-centered egotists, convinced from their earliest days by fawning fans that the world owes them glamorous lives. Some of them are exemplary human beings. To dislike football because some of its players are lacking is like avoiding a great movie because one is upset that the male lead is a serial divorcer or, worse yet, a Scientologist. It’s the game we like. The game and its attachments.
When I was just a first-grader, my maternal grandfather died, a colossal blow to my grandmother who took years to recover and remarry. She chose well, hooking up with a never-married gentle man named Bob Vogler of the Methuen (Mass.) Voglers, a large and ebullient German family of which Bob was easily the most sedate member. The Voglers liked to get out of the house a lot and so on Saturday afternoons you could always find them chasing around the state after the Methuen High School football team. One day, Bob asked me if I would like to come along. This is sorta like asking a kid if he might like to have an extra Christmas present. I went with the Voglers to the heretofore unknown town of Hudson on a Friday night to watch their beloved blue-and-white get pummeled by the home team. After that, I was part of the posse each weekend for home games and road trips alike, celebrating the victories, commiserating with my new pals over the losses. Bob (all of five-three, himself) was particularly enamoured of a small but powerful halfback named Rock Bamford, who constantly broke tackles and escaped from impossible situations, rising up to cheer the diminutive powerhouse in raucous and un-Boblike fashion.
The Voglers liked to sit in the first or second row in the tiny Methuen Stadium, the grandstand of which was skrunched right up against the sideline, allowing only a small open strip for the players and the cheerleaders, every one of which was acrobatic and pretty. My favorite was Shirley Marshman, cute and curly-headed and able to do fifty back flips in a row if you needed her to. Funny, the things that stick in your mind. As the years passed, alas, the Voglers grew older and more infirm and one by one, they slowly abandoned their Saturday football games. But I kept going, walking the long walk, sometimes hitchhiking to the little stadium, walking through back yards and enjoying the Fall incense of burning leaves, a favorite smell to this day. “For our team never falters….” the cheerleaders sang, kicking up their heels and smiling the unconquerable smiles of youth, and of course, their team never did. Lose? Maybe. Falter? Never. You see what I mean? There’s more to this thing than just the game.
On Sunday, the Lawrence High and Central Catholic teams alternated home dates at the local stadium, just a hop, skip and jump down the road from our house in South Lawrence. I usually went with one or two friends to these games and we never paid to get in, matching wits with the cops who vigilantly patrolled the perimeter. The crowds were large enough to melt into once you got inside but the defenders made it tough, particularly at the biggest games, where platoons of policemen heightened the challenge. It took guerrilla tactics to succeed under these trying circumstances but we generally found a way. Sometimes, we would “flood the zone,” send one group over the fence in a particular area where they would be repelled and forced back by the cops; while this was occurring, a second group would attack the breach. It was a numbers game and we had the numbers, though there were some scary moments. I remember almost being swept off a fence by a zooming motorcycle cop a little too dedicated to his trade. The football, of course, was great but damned if the preliminaries weren’t bad either. If somebody had given us free tickets to the games, I’m not sure we would have taken them. A piece of the tapestry would have been missing. I still go to a high-school game now and then. It brings back memories. Sad to admit, I almost never sneak in any more.
The Foes Of Halloween
Well, it’s almost that time again. All Hallows Eve, the Christianized feast initially influenced by Celtic harvest rituals and festivals of the dead, the latter with likely pagan roots. When we were kids, of course, all we cared about was getting dressed up and strongarming candy from our beloved neighbors under threat of waxing windows or leaving a burning pile of…um…dogpoop on their nice porches. Most of them caved. It was easier that way. Of course, in those days we didn’t have the clever fiends who thought it might be a funny idea to put razor blades in your Bit-O-Honey bars or invite you in for a spot of tea and molestation. The worse thing we’d run into was some crazy bastard who would dress up like the Wolf-Man, sling open the door and let out a horrendous growl. We could live with that. Nowadays, of course, we’ve got real lunatics all over the place. Kid-poisoners. Organ exposers. Even actual kidnappers. If kids are allowed to trick-or-treat at all, they have to bring the parents along with them. Total buzzkill. Nice going, perverts! How to ruin a holiday.
Even worse, now we’ve got nitwits who are trying to do away with Halloween altogether. You know them, the same crackpots who are always trying to impose their own silly standards on the rest of society. To these dipwads, Halloween is “Satan’s Day,” and must be met with Total Resistance. In Mechanicsburg, Pa., Sporting Hill Elementary School has banned costumes on the bogus claim that “safety is our top priority.” Right. You can never really tell if Tina the Ballerina is carrying a machete under her tiny tutu.
In Sandy, Utah, a Mormon church invited kids to a Halloween party stipulating “no masks or cross-gender dressing.” As one columnist chided, “Woe to the little girl trying to sneak in wearing a Mr. Potato Head costume.”
It’s probably okay, though, if you want to dress up like one of the Tea Party heroes, like, say Ted Cruz or Michele Bachman. Matter of fact, I think this would be an exemplary idea. Then Ted and Michele could parade into one of the right-wing anti-Halloween extravaganzas, jump up on stage, gather a crowd, whip off their external garments and, well, do it in the road. I’ll bet they never forget that Halloween. Mess with our holidays, will you….
We’re Off To The Chiefland Zoo….
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. (Sarah Williams)
It’s that time again. Astronomers from all over the eastern states are packing up their expensive telescopes and heading for little Levy County, where every year the local astronomy village hosts the world-famous (but largely unknown, hereabouts) Chiefland Star Party. We only know this because Siobhan’s brother, Stuart, makes it a practice to unfailingly attend these events to garner spectacular photographs of this nebula and that. We used to have great admiration for these starwatchers, imagining them up all night busily attending to their instruments. Then we discovered that they merely get the things all set up and go off to sleep while the cameras carefully patrol the night sky, collecting fabulous images which the photographers happily awake to in the morning. Anyway, by dint of his talent and forbearance, Stuart has now become somewhat of an authority on collecting these images, to the extent he has been invited to lecture on his area of specialization. Because Stuart is kind of a smart aleck, the title of his talk is “Going Through The Change,” which is really about image processing with Pixinsight, whatever that is.
Anyway, this sordid affair runs from October 28 to November 3 in a great big field south of Chiefland. If you’re thinking of taking a trip out there to check out the proceedings, don’t do it. They don’t want you out there. Really, they don’t. There is a modicum of tolerance, however, for people who bring food. Forewarned is forearmed.
Previews Of Coming Attractions
Next week is Bill’s exciting Birthday Issue, with all that entails. So we’ll be down to get you in a taxi, honey, better be ready ‘bout half past eight. Now baby don’t be late. I wanna be there when the band starts playing. Gonna dance out of both of my shoes when they play those Jelly Roll Blues. Tomorrow night at the Darktown Strutters Ball. Or Bill’s birthday, whichever comes first.
That’s all, folks….
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then the time a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin' and the fodder’s in the shock.
Autumn Reverie
The frost isn’t quite on the punkin yet in these parts but the time is growing near. Early morning temperatures struggle to reach the seventies these days with a big drop into the forties expected for the weekend. The angel trumpets, Brugmansia to afficionados, have been saving their strength all year to blossom out for a spectacular few days and we applaud the results of their efforts. The grass in the paddocks has slowed its growth and the mowers will soon be put up for another year. Pumpkins, of course, are everywhere, bringing back memories of past football trips to Auburn over small country roads laden with beautiful stands of pumpkins. Halloween is near, attested to by the plethora of giant retail outlets which open just three months a year to service celebrants.
With November drawing near, it’s time for the mares, Dot and Wanda, to return from their weaning break and take up occupancy in the south paddock, a fiefdom ruled for the past year by Hurricane Zip, who is sure to be put out at the audacity of it all as he returns to smaller quarters adjacent to Juggernaut. Training starts in earnest now for the yearlings at Eisaman Equine, which includes our Bull Ensign, who is probably getting a little bored traversing the shedrow under tack and looking forward to bigger things. Cosmic Flash, same address, will get back to jogging soon, readying for a winter campaign. The better horses, Derby hopefuls among them, will begin to drift in to Gulfstream Park from the eastern half of the country to contend for honors during Florida’s best racing season.
November brings either happy or sad news, depending on how you look at it—another birthday for Bill, who is threatening to get very old—but who, at least, is still here and currently without menace. At this age, it’s a day to day proposition. Small health issues which would have been beneath notice in the past are more closely examined for threat of future expansion these days. Annual blood tests are pored over carefully for signs of regression. Many people, of course, just sigh and announce, “Ah well, when it’s my time to go, so be it.” Bill is not one of these people. Bill is not going anywhere without a struggle. Like the wiser football coaches, he is “taking it one game at a time.” So far, so good.
All Hail The Angel Trumpets!
Fastest Horse In The World With Fastest Human On Northwest 112th Avenue
Legends Of The Fall
With Autumn, of course, we get football, the college version long awaited over the past eight months by participants, fans and pretenders who just like to tailgate and drink. Some people, believe it or not, do not like football, and they are not all effete sissypants, lonely women or jealous males who lost their high-school sweethearts to the captain of the football team. Some people just abhor the violence of the game, the mentality it develops in its combatants, the resources schools devote to the program. Too bad for some people. First of all, nobody said you have to like football players to like football. Some of them undoubtedly are dazed brutes who think the Iliad is a flower their grandmother used to grow in her garden. Many of them are self-centered egotists, convinced from their earliest days by fawning fans that the world owes them glamorous lives. Some of them are exemplary human beings. To dislike football because some of its players are lacking is like avoiding a great movie because one is upset that the male lead is a serial divorcer or, worse yet, a Scientologist. It’s the game we like. The game and its attachments.
When I was just a first-grader, my maternal grandfather died, a colossal blow to my grandmother who took years to recover and remarry. She chose well, hooking up with a never-married gentle man named Bob Vogler of the Methuen (Mass.) Voglers, a large and ebullient German family of which Bob was easily the most sedate member. The Voglers liked to get out of the house a lot and so on Saturday afternoons you could always find them chasing around the state after the Methuen High School football team. One day, Bob asked me if I would like to come along. This is sorta like asking a kid if he might like to have an extra Christmas present. I went with the Voglers to the heretofore unknown town of Hudson on a Friday night to watch their beloved blue-and-white get pummeled by the home team. After that, I was part of the posse each weekend for home games and road trips alike, celebrating the victories, commiserating with my new pals over the losses. Bob (all of five-three, himself) was particularly enamoured of a small but powerful halfback named Rock Bamford, who constantly broke tackles and escaped from impossible situations, rising up to cheer the diminutive powerhouse in raucous and un-Boblike fashion.
The Voglers liked to sit in the first or second row in the tiny Methuen Stadium, the grandstand of which was skrunched right up against the sideline, allowing only a small open strip for the players and the cheerleaders, every one of which was acrobatic and pretty. My favorite was Shirley Marshman, cute and curly-headed and able to do fifty back flips in a row if you needed her to. Funny, the things that stick in your mind. As the years passed, alas, the Voglers grew older and more infirm and one by one, they slowly abandoned their Saturday football games. But I kept going, walking the long walk, sometimes hitchhiking to the little stadium, walking through back yards and enjoying the Fall incense of burning leaves, a favorite smell to this day. “For our team never falters….” the cheerleaders sang, kicking up their heels and smiling the unconquerable smiles of youth, and of course, their team never did. Lose? Maybe. Falter? Never. You see what I mean? There’s more to this thing than just the game.
On Sunday, the Lawrence High and Central Catholic teams alternated home dates at the local stadium, just a hop, skip and jump down the road from our house in South Lawrence. I usually went with one or two friends to these games and we never paid to get in, matching wits with the cops who vigilantly patrolled the perimeter. The crowds were large enough to melt into once you got inside but the defenders made it tough, particularly at the biggest games, where platoons of policemen heightened the challenge. It took guerrilla tactics to succeed under these trying circumstances but we generally found a way. Sometimes, we would “flood the zone,” send one group over the fence in a particular area where they would be repelled and forced back by the cops; while this was occurring, a second group would attack the breach. It was a numbers game and we had the numbers, though there were some scary moments. I remember almost being swept off a fence by a zooming motorcycle cop a little too dedicated to his trade. The football, of course, was great but damned if the preliminaries weren’t bad either. If somebody had given us free tickets to the games, I’m not sure we would have taken them. A piece of the tapestry would have been missing. I still go to a high-school game now and then. It brings back memories. Sad to admit, I almost never sneak in any more.
The Foes Of Halloween
Well, it’s almost that time again. All Hallows Eve, the Christianized feast initially influenced by Celtic harvest rituals and festivals of the dead, the latter with likely pagan roots. When we were kids, of course, all we cared about was getting dressed up and strongarming candy from our beloved neighbors under threat of waxing windows or leaving a burning pile of…um…dogpoop on their nice porches. Most of them caved. It was easier that way. Of course, in those days we didn’t have the clever fiends who thought it might be a funny idea to put razor blades in your Bit-O-Honey bars or invite you in for a spot of tea and molestation. The worse thing we’d run into was some crazy bastard who would dress up like the Wolf-Man, sling open the door and let out a horrendous growl. We could live with that. Nowadays, of course, we’ve got real lunatics all over the place. Kid-poisoners. Organ exposers. Even actual kidnappers. If kids are allowed to trick-or-treat at all, they have to bring the parents along with them. Total buzzkill. Nice going, perverts! How to ruin a holiday.
Even worse, now we’ve got nitwits who are trying to do away with Halloween altogether. You know them, the same crackpots who are always trying to impose their own silly standards on the rest of society. To these dipwads, Halloween is “Satan’s Day,” and must be met with Total Resistance. In Mechanicsburg, Pa., Sporting Hill Elementary School has banned costumes on the bogus claim that “safety is our top priority.” Right. You can never really tell if Tina the Ballerina is carrying a machete under her tiny tutu.
In Sandy, Utah, a Mormon church invited kids to a Halloween party stipulating “no masks or cross-gender dressing.” As one columnist chided, “Woe to the little girl trying to sneak in wearing a Mr. Potato Head costume.”
It’s probably okay, though, if you want to dress up like one of the Tea Party heroes, like, say Ted Cruz or Michele Bachman. Matter of fact, I think this would be an exemplary idea. Then Ted and Michele could parade into one of the right-wing anti-Halloween extravaganzas, jump up on stage, gather a crowd, whip off their external garments and, well, do it in the road. I’ll bet they never forget that Halloween. Mess with our holidays, will you….
We’re Off To The Chiefland Zoo….
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. (Sarah Williams)
It’s that time again. Astronomers from all over the eastern states are packing up their expensive telescopes and heading for little Levy County, where every year the local astronomy village hosts the world-famous (but largely unknown, hereabouts) Chiefland Star Party. We only know this because Siobhan’s brother, Stuart, makes it a practice to unfailingly attend these events to garner spectacular photographs of this nebula and that. We used to have great admiration for these starwatchers, imagining them up all night busily attending to their instruments. Then we discovered that they merely get the things all set up and go off to sleep while the cameras carefully patrol the night sky, collecting fabulous images which the photographers happily awake to in the morning. Anyway, by dint of his talent and forbearance, Stuart has now become somewhat of an authority on collecting these images, to the extent he has been invited to lecture on his area of specialization. Because Stuart is kind of a smart aleck, the title of his talk is “Going Through The Change,” which is really about image processing with Pixinsight, whatever that is.
Anyway, this sordid affair runs from October 28 to November 3 in a great big field south of Chiefland. If you’re thinking of taking a trip out there to check out the proceedings, don’t do it. They don’t want you out there. Really, they don’t. There is a modicum of tolerance, however, for people who bring food. Forewarned is forearmed.
Previews Of Coming Attractions
Next week is Bill’s exciting Birthday Issue, with all that entails. So we’ll be down to get you in a taxi, honey, better be ready ‘bout half past eight. Now baby don’t be late. I wanna be there when the band starts playing. Gonna dance out of both of my shoes when they play those Jelly Roll Blues. Tomorrow night at the Darktown Strutters Ball. Or Bill’s birthday, whichever comes first.
That’s all, folks….
