Remembering Georgie Bonds

DUKES FANS: “All I’ve ever wanted to do was to be a cowboy and a singer.” Georgie Bonds This week and last week I have been thinking about and celebrating the life of the great Philadelphia bluesman Georgie Bonds. A member of the Pennsylvania Blues Hall of Fame, Georgie was a regular on the Philadelphia blues scene who seemingly came out of nowhere in the 1990’s to become one of the most popular singer/guitarists up and down the East Coast. I first heard him in the mid-1900’s at blues jams at The Barbary and later at Warmdaddy’s,and he blew me away. His voice had a clear presence that was both sweet and powerful at the same time. Listening to him sing was always moving and intense. The Dukes were fortunate to do a couple of festivals with him, and we got to know him. He was a genuine and friendly person, and he always had that big smile. And when he asked how you were doing, you knew he really wanted to know. He was outgoing, friendly, and real. Georgie had some health issues due to a medical error, but he was still upbeat and outgoing even as he dealt with the long term consequences of that event. He rode and loved horses, was a real-life blacksmith, and was a joyous soul in love with life. He passed away on last Monday, January 13th at the age of 72. Thanks, Georgie, for sharing your music and your love of life with us. Love you! (https://georgiebonds.com )

January Night Skies

DUKES FANS "In winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity." John Burroughs, "The Snow-Walkers," 1866 Around 5:30 PM a wonderful curtain of darkness comes down and settles in, and for some 13 or 14 hours we are in the grip of one of the most dramatic and beautiful scenes on the planet-the winter night sky in the Northern Hemisphere. That seasonal combination of the absence of leaves on the trees, the sheer number of hours of darkness, the clear presence of so many constellations, and the visibility of several planets makes the winter sky among my favorite celestial happenings. Yes, there are nights when it is cloudy and not much seems visible, but even then the greys have their subtle shades and shapes that seem mysterious. And when the sky is cloudless, then things are amazingly stark and dramatic. Even in the city, nature's lights in the sky stand out. Some of the constellations are clear and almost shouting in their brightness: the Dippers in the north, Orion to the southeast, and Cygnus to the northwest are simply brilliant and delightful. It is a quiet gorgeousness up above us each night that beckons and pleases. For the past few days we have been fortunate to have had the first full moon of 2025 moon. The crescent and quarter moons give way to a new moon by the end of the first full week of January. The Full Moon was on January 13th, and this has easily and proudly visible for the past few nights and into the early morning. I am out most days by 6AM, and the moon is still proudly there in the northwest sky. Seeing it has been a wonderful way to welcome the day. This moon is known as The Wolf Moon. And that is supposedly because wolves are more active as this time in the winter, and their howls are more constant and pronounced. Visible, too, for the month is Jupiter, high overhead and also in the northwest sky. Venus and Mars are also visible during mush of this month; it is a month of extraordinary visuals. These are all treats and wonders for us to behold, and they all remind me of the wonderfully paradoxical position of humans in this universe. We are really quite insignificant when you observe all that is going on around and above us. I mean there is Jupiter or a comet, and then there is us. But we are also powerful because we can observe, think about and make some type of order out of all of this. We can even name these things. That too is amazing-we are simultaneously powerless and powerful. And we also get to stand back and enjoy it all. I hope you can all find some time to watch and enjoy the shows above us. Here is a link to a website that can help you find out and learn more about our magnificently wondrous January night skies. Get out, look up, and enjoy. The Sky Live https://theskylive.com/guide?geoid=4560349 ____________________________________________________ MLK DAY: A reminder that Monday is Martin Luther King Day of Service. Here is a link to a listing of service opportunities and celebrations in the Philadelphia area. https://volunteer.globalcitizen365.org/kingdayoverview?layoutViewMode=tablet

History is The Story Beneath The Story

DUKES FANS: “There are so many men and women who hold no distinctive positions but whose contribution towards the development of society has been enormous.” Nelson Mandela “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people working consistently can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead The above quotes have been important to me since I first came across them years ago. They point out the fact that while our history books and history courses often focus on important people, most of what those people accomplished that made them “historical” would not have been possible without the actions, support and involvement of tons of people whose names we will never know. When I taught American and world history, I often told students that history is about story-what happened, why did it happen, how did it happen, and most importantly, who were all the ordinary people involved? How were they affected? What did they do leading up to the big event? Or just after it? To me, that is where the power and beauty of history rests. As the Margaret Mead quote states, it is the actions of groups of people and not just 1 “great person’ that makes history and makes change. We may symbolize or personify the story through a great person, but it is the work of groups and of the "ordinary” folk that played a huge role in making it possible. Kings, generals, and Presidents plan and try to make things happen, but it is the willingness of many ordinary people ,working together, that can lead to an event occurring. Yes, many times the events or actions are ones with which we disagree or did not wish to happen. But the involvement of the ordinary people was essential. And that involvement is especially essential to those things we support and need, particularly in the area of justice and social change. There are unknown folks and backstory beneath any historical event, and we need to realize and acknowledge that. Take the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, for example. People know about Rosa Parks’ refusing to sit in the back of the bus and being arrested on Thursday, December 1, 1955. But most people do not know that she had worked with the NAACP for years, was not the first black woman arrested in Montgomery for sitting in the front of a bus, and that she had, in fact, set out to get arrested. Most people also do not know that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was not really associated with the people who helped organize the initial meeting which led to that famous boycott. It was labor leader E.D. Nixon who tricked King into hosting that first meeting about Ms. Park’s arrest because King was new in town and the powers that be in Montgomery did not know him, and therefore, had no plans on how to deal with him. And the first boycott meeting happened, in fact, not because of King, but in large because of the actions of one of my favorite unknown heroines-Jo Ann Robinson. A long-time member of the Montgomery Women’s Council, a black group that had been advocating for change in the Montgomery transportation system for several years, she, several friends, and family members hand mimeographed-not XEROXED or photo copied-HAND MIMIEOGRAPHED- some 30,000 fliers Thursday December, 1st that were placed in churches, given to high school students, and placed in barber shops and other places on Friday, December 2, calling for people to initiate a one day boycott of the bus system on Monday, December 5th. It was the success of that Monday boycott that led to the formation of the Montgomery Improvement Association and the full- blown Montgomery Bus Boycott that we think of today. I mention all of this because Monday, January 20th is an opportunity for many of us to be a part of groups working in small ways to help make things better. That Monday is Martin Luther Kings’ Birthday, and the Philadelphia area is home to the largest collection of service opportunities in the nation happening on that day. The idea is that ordinary citizens on that day can try to live out some of the ideas in the Mandela and Meade quotes about what it takes to make change. Global Citizen 365 is the organizer of many volunteer opportunities that help communities. If you are interested, please go to Global Citizen 365 to find places where you can be a part of those committed people helping to bring change. In these small ways, we can be a part of history. https://volunteer.globalcitizen365.org/kingdayoverview?layoutViewMode=tablet

Why Our Year Starts in January

DUKES FANS: “An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.” Bill Vaughan Human History, Ritual, and the New Year This Tuesday night into early Wednesday is a big time for most of the world. We are saying “Goodbye” to the year 2024 and saying, “Hello” to the year 2025. Here in the US and around the world there will be tons of celebrations, ceremonies, religious rituals, parties, and more as the majority of the world celebrates making this move from one year into the next. The parties and celebrations this year, though, will be very different from the wild revelry that is usually associated with this holiday. There are many post-COVID restrictions on what is allowed at public municipal celebrations-no alcohol is allowed to be brought in to the big New York City celebration this year, for example. Nonetheless, it will still be big and noisy. And billions of people will stay up until midnight to watch and to countdown the dropping of the ball. New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are probably the most universally celebrated public holidays in the world. For most of the world, that means December 31st rolling into January 1st. That is relatively recent, though. For most of human history, New Years did not mean those dates, and in some cultures, it still doesn't. Seeing December 31st as "2024" and January 1st as "2025" represents the relatively recent triumph of the Western World's sense of time over those of other, more ancient cultures. The calendar with which we are familiar is less than 500 years old, and the idea of starting a new year in January is less than 3000 years old. And it is, when you think of it, strange to be starting a new year in what is for many parts of the world, winter. The idea celebrating a "new year" is not strange; it has been part of human ritual and tradition for thousands of years. The first recorded celebrations of a “new year’ come from some 4000 years ago in Mesopotamia, the civilization developed along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now Iraq. This was the place most historians agree urban living, or "civilization", started. And like most religious and cultural celebrations of long standing, it was tied to what nature was doing at a certain time. Around the spring and fall equinoxes, when days and nights were of equal length, Mesopotamians celebrated both the planting (spring) and the harvest (fall) as days of renewal for the earth, and especially for the cities and their surrounding farmlands. “Akitu” was the name of the festival, and historians look to those ancient celebrations as the first recorded instances of regular, culture-wide celebrations of a “new year.” Of course, such celebrations are probably much older; humans did lots of things long before writing and keeping records were invented. But once farming and agriculture became mainstays of human activity large numbers of people simply had to know when the ideal times were to plant and to harvest; civilizations depend on that for their existence. So for thousands of years and in most cultures, it was spring that was viewed as the beginning of a new year. And why not? Flowers are budding, animals are emerging from hibernation or returning to feeding grounds and mating, and days were longer. That cycle of the seasons was noted and revered. The earth was being “born again” right in front of and around us, so celebrating that time as a “new year” made sense. This "spring-as-new year" idea can easily be seen in the practices of many religions, even today. Some of the most significant holidays-holy days-of many religions are in the spring. Like spring, Easter and Passover, are both about renewal and rebirth, actually and/or metaphorically. Knowing this cycle of the seasons was essential knowledge for us as a species, and humans have long built their most important rituals around our “essential knowledges." So how did we get from the cycle of the seasons being what determines the new year to an almost universal acceptance of January as the new year? What happened? In 46 B.C.E. Julius Caesar, the leader of the Roman Empire, faced a challenge. Empires control many peoples and many different cultures across many miles. To operate at peak efficiency, they needed an "empire-wide" sense of time, especially for trade, religion, and law. Julius invited Sosigenes, a noted astronomer from Egypt, to come to Rome and create a new calendar to unify and regularize the empire's sense of time. This astronomer moved the Roman Empire's calendar from the movable dates of a lunar (moon) based calendar to the more regularly dated solar (sun) based calendar. Doing this moved the start of the calendar year from March (spring) back to January. Further adding to the changes, the Roman Senate decided in 42 B.C.E. to honor the by-then assassinated Caesar by making January 1 a day of tribute to him. This meshed very nicely with Roman religion and symbolism, and it firmly implanted that date as the start of a new year across the Empire. The Romans already had a god of gates and beginnings named Janus, for whom the month of January is named. Janus was two headed, with one head looking backward and the other one looking forward. This became the perfect metaphor for the idea of a new year: look back at what had already happened and look forward to what is yet to come. January had become the start of a "new year" under what became called the Julian calendar. This lasted throughout the Empire for centuries. But as the Roman Empire broke up, when the new year started once again became a confusing mélange of dates. The Catholic Church, in an attempt to create a unified Europe, drew up a new calendar in 1582 under the leadership of Pope Gregory the 13th. This calendar, since called the Gregorian Calendar, is the one in use in most of the world today. It kept the new year as starting on January 1st, and as European Christian countries came to dominate much of the world, the new year's date around the world gradually came to be January 1st. Yes, there are still cultures and calendars which celebrate the new year at different times among and for themselves; the Jewish, Islamic, Chinese, and Baha'i calendars are all prime examples of this. (They celebrate the new year in the fall, summer, later winter, and spring respectively). But the regular, everyday world we all know, and especially the business and political worlds we know, now go by the Gregorian calendar and recognize the start of a New Year as January 1st. So this Wednesday will be the start of 2025, regardless of how out of step that is with most of human history. As we head into this next new beginning, I wish you all a time of thoughtfulness, hope, strength, fun, hope, good spirits, good company, and good food. These are worrisome and challenging times-no doubt about it. But we humans have faced such times before, and with faith, unity, support, consistent hard work, and especially through friendship and through community, we have endured and even flourished in some very important ways. That is also an essential trait of being human-we can often respond to hard times in some pretty remarkable ways. So whenever, wherever, and however you celebrate it, I wish each of you a happy and wonderful start to the new year. We all have a chance to make new history all over again. How about that?! Happy New Year!

The Magic and Meanings of December Lights

DUKES FANS: December Skies: It gets dark noticeably earlier now, and I am unabashedly in love with winter skies. I have been spending parts of several evenings since Daylight Savings Time ended standing outside at about 8PM and looking up at the southwest part of the sky. The moon has gone through several phases over the last weeks, and it seems so powerful and quietly majestic up there, particularly when there is that seeming haze and shadow surrounding it. The stars seem brighter and more dramatic against the deeper and darker blues that characterize the night sky at this time of the year. The constellations seem clearer and larger. At times like this I think much more about light and dark-about how those two concepts so clearly manifest themselves as winter progresses. With all of the Christmas lights and candles appearing on porches, houses, streets, and in store windows, I am once again awakened to the importance of light to us humans. It is quietly wonderful. I remembered a piece I wrote about light several years ago, and I thought I would dig it out and share it again. I hope you like it. Let There Be Light: December is a month overflowing with observances and rituals. There are so many celebrations from so many different religious and ethnic traditions from around the world that take place during this month. There is, of course, Christmas and the various minor celebrations leading up to and associated with it: Advent, the 12 Days of Christmas, Yule, and others, depending on your ethnicity, culture, and religious tradition. There is also Hanukkah with its 8 days of oil-based food, candles, and dreidel playing. There is Kwanzaa, with its celebration of Pan-African culture, candles, and values. And if you are Buddhist, Hopi, Hindu, traditional Persian, Wiccan, or West African Dogon, there are celebrations for you as well during this month. What so many of these celebrations and observances have in common is the prominence of light in their observances. Candles, bonfires, logs, electric lights, tree lights, flashing lights-light is a common element, metaphor and symbol world -wide at this time of the year. And our rituals clearly bring that home. It make perfect sense that humans are light conscious in December. Humans look to nature to try to figure out what is coming and what God or the gods have in store for us. For most of our history that has meant looking to the sky-to the sun, the moon and the stars. Humans have known for centuries that the length of the days was changing at this time of the year and that the winter solstice was coming. This became a time of deep spiritual meaning for early humans, and it was marked in many different ways depending upon geography and culture. As the length of the days slowly increased, it was as if the earth was being reborn, and we were living through and witnessing that process. We had to acknowledge that and honor it, else it may not happen again. So symbolically, many cultures created rituals that recognized it as a time of rebirth. Many of the stories, myths and traditions from different times and places began to associate the time leading to and just after the solstice with miraculous births, enlightenment, miracles, and/or new beginnings. The Druid bonfires and the Germanic and Norse Yule logs, for example, were symbolic and metaphoric symbols of cleansing, sacrifice, and the simultaneous death and rebirth of the earth-from the shortest day of the year to gradually more and more hours of sunlight. To the ancient Persians this was the time of the Yalda festival, and Mithras, the symbol of truth, strength, goodness and light, was born to a virgin mother at this time of the year. His birth was celebrated with flame and holy fire. Sol Invictus, the Roman sun god, was also celebrated at this time. We humans even long ago seemed to know that we had to meet the darkness with light. New beginnings are important in most religious traditions, and light was a strong metaphor for that. Our language today shows that it still is. We speak of, “seeing the light, or “coming into the light.” There is the “inner light,” and we also “let our light shine.” We use light as a symbol for transformation and rebirth, and these qualities are readily spoken of and alluded to in many of the rituals and ceremonies that occur at this time of the year. Hanukkah is about rebirth and new beginnings as it celebrates the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem from its desecration when Antiochus made it into a Greek temple. The candles symbolize, in part, the rebirth of the religion. The candles in Kwanzaa symbolize the reawakened connection and awareness of African values and connections for people of African descent. To Buddhists, Bodhi Day in December celebrates the Buddha becoming a Buddha-an enlightened one who suddenly could see beyond illusion. To Christians, the Star of Bethlehem led to a new beginning for humans, as it led the Wise Men to the birthplace of Jesus. Light was symbolically leading us forward. And light is as powerful today to us humans as it was long ago when we first figured out what the solstice was and what it could mean. Tradition has it that Martin Luther saw stars one night as he was composing a sermon and tried to capture their beauty by adding lighted candles to the Christmas tree inside his house. Whether that is true or not, by the time the Germanic tradition of the Christmas tree reached the US the idea of lights were a fixture. And now there are lighted houses, malls, streets, yards, shops and more. We are awash in lights; there are even whole streets and neighborhoods that collaborate to plan what their light scheme is going to be each holiday season. And many families now have a tradition of driving to visit different neighborhoods just to see the light displays. So our ancient connections to the rhythms and structures of the natural world are still with us, even if we do not recognize them as such. As up to date and modern as we are in this digital age, we are still human. That means we are still connected to our ancestors in some important and primal ways. As we celebrate our various rituals, traditions and personal rituals this season, I hope you can spend some time thinking about the links between what we do now and what we as a species have always done. And I hope you can spend some evening time outside looking up and taking some time to marvel at what is going on up there. It is quite miraculous, and it still influences so much of what we do down here. Do have a safe, warm, happy, love and light filled holiday season, however you celebrate it. Let there be light and let it be good.

Giving Thanks

DUKES FANS: "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." John F. Kennedy Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year, and I wish you all a week of good thoughts and living more in gratitude. I noticed that many places this year seemed to skip Thanksgiving and move right from Halloween to Christmas displays and consumption, even before Halloween. So I am repeating a slightly edited version of a piece I sent last year about giving thanks and consumption: FROM BLACK FRIDAY TO GIVING TUESDAY: THANKSGIVING, AND COMMERCE There have always been links between seasonal changes and commerce. Early human groups traveled across different places at different times in the year and found different things available for both consuming and trading. In the ancient world, spring meant hunting and trading for more plants and seeds, and going to where the herds of animals and schools of fish were plentiful in order to get more. Autumn meant increased hunting, trading, gathering and traveling to harvest plants and to get supplies and shelter for winter. Most hunting-gathering people already saw religious and mythological links between changes in seasons and their lives, so the special importance of different products at different times became natural. The original autumnal “thanksgivings” were literally the “giving of “Thanks” to the gods for a good harvest and/or hunt, and also a hope for surviving the winter. As cities and the lifestyle known as civilization developed, more extensive trading and conquering happened, and many more things became available. New products came from different parts of the world, and the having of lots of products became associated with everything from class level to social wealth to religious worth to personal worth, to political power and more. Civilizations keep producing and developing more products at an ever-increasing rate. And when civilizations developed into empires, the importance of having, trading, giving, and owning products exploded exponentially. Commerce became more and more of a driving force in cultures. Over time we have developed systems for coming up with new products to keep the commerce flowing: Research and Development, planned obsolescence, and upgrades. We have come up with more ways of putting products in front of people-signs, advertising campaigns, product placement, pop-up ads embedded in websites, celebrity endorsements, and more. The bazaars and marketplaces of the old days have been replaced by shopping malls, warehouse outlets and now online giants such as Amazon are replacing many brick and mortar stores. And there is no end in sight to this growth and expansion. After the 1924 debut of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, this post-Thanksgiving weekend quickly became the start of our “winter shopping season.” The gift-giving associated with the Christmas story became more and more the focus of Christmas, and the Friday after Thanksgiving was the time to get it started. Stores and shops ran special sales and campaigns to get people into the stores and opening up the wallets and pocketbooks. And this year it even started before Halloween. The term for that time is, of course, “Black Friday”, and the origin of that term has a dark side to it. In the 1950s, police in Philadelphia used the term to describe the chaos that ensued on the day after Thanksgiving. Hordes of shoppers and tourists flooded into the city to take advantage of the sales and in advance of the big Army-Navy football game that used to be held here every year on the Saturday following Thanksgiving. Suburbs were relatively new and expanding, and the new highways and freeways made it easier for suburbanites to get into the city to shop as well as go to sporting events. Philly cops had to work extra-long shifts dealing with the increasing mess of huge crowds and miles of traffic problems. Shoplifters also took advantage of the bedlam in stores to make off with merchandise, and pickpockets endlessly worked the crowds. To police, then, the Friday after Thanksgiving was not joyous at all. Instead, it was “black.” By 1961, “Black Friday” had become the local term for that day in Philadelphia. Retailers tried unsuccessfully to change it to “Big Friday” in order to remove the negative connotations of the term, but that term didn’t take off. “Black Friday” was what it was called, and Black Friday it remained. So retailers did the next best thing: they changed the meaning and explanation for the term. They turned it into a story about businesses on that day suddenly making a profit-going into the black. This new story of what Black Friday meant caught on, and the term’s true origin was forgotten. Not only did the phrase catch on across the nation. And what was originally a one-day event slowly morphed into a four-day event that spawned other “retail holidays” such as Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday” came into being in 2005 as an idea to encourage people to shop online and build this new thing known as online businesses. With the amount of online shopping increasing over time and really jumping due to COVID, it is estimated that Cyber Monday this year will bring in some 20 billion dollars. Clearly this seasonal urge to spend is quite powerful in our culture. It even applies to charities and non-profits. A 2023 survey found the some 50% of charities and non-profits reported that most of their individual contributions came in between October and December. The ideas of holiday gifting, seasonal calls for thinking of others, and tax deductions combined to drive more charitable fundraising these last three months of the year. And this has resulted in the development of “Giving Tuesday.” Giving Tuesday is a day for making donations to fund good causes following Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The founders wanted people to focus on giving after their weekend shopping spree, and to see a seamless link between spending for family and self and giving to help others. The idea quickly took off, and it is now an international movement. It even has its own website- https://www.givingtuesday.org/about which serves as a conduit connecting groups, causes, organizations and individuals. The website has history, tools to get organized, and connections to local movements from around the world. Given the widespread challenges presented by the effects of the COVID pandemic, increased natural disasters and increases in worldwide poverty rates, support for charitable institutions is even more critical. Giving Tuesday is one way of making that support possible. So the “Black Friday” phenomenon can, and in many ways, has definitely overwhelmed the intended sense of the original autumnal thanksgivings. It often seems to be about things and about consumption above all else. But with a true focus on gratitude, it can be about the simple joys of family and friends get-togethers. And it can also lead to a “Giving Tuesday” if we allow ourselves to get beyond consumption and the products and onto to something more meaningful. We can find another way to extend the notion of gratitude by giving back and giving to. I hope more of us can move to that this year. If you are so moved, please go to: https://www.givingtuesday.org/about For some interesting statistics on US charitable giving: https://www.definefinancial.com/blog/charitable-giving-statistics/ D

Finding Joy in This Fall

DUKES FANS I am jealous of two sets of friends today. One set got back from the Adirondacks last week, and one just got back from New Hampshire. And they both told me how great it was seeing Fall in all of its brightness and glory. I am jealous because Fall here in the Philadelphia area has been a tad subdued-drab. I have visited some of my favorite trees already this Fall, and they are not the spectacular reds, oranges, and yellows that had been so magnificently dancing with each other just a few years before. Coming up from the Richard Allen Lane train station, I was usually greeted by two tall widespread trees on Cresheim Valley Road that were a joyous mix of colors reaching for the sky. On Mt Pleasant Ave there is a bush in the 100 block which, when I look at it from the bottom of the little hill at Mt Pleasant and Germantown Ave, looked like a flaming red fire in the middle of the block. Both of these trees have shown a little red, but they are both much, much 'quieter' than they have been in the past. As the leaves have started falling, there is little chance of the appearing in their previous glory. I have noticed several trees on Germantown Ave near Mt Pleasant that have some good reds on parts of the trees, and that is good to see. But it has been somewhat of a disappointing fall for tree lovers in this region. The skies of the past couple of weeks, though, have been absolutely gorgeous. I did not get to see the Northern Lights earlier this week as I live in the city, but the moon, clouds, and skies of the past week have all been breathtaking. The cumulus clouds have been bright white, thick, and numerous, clumped together and/or stretching out in all sorts of wonderful shapes. It has been clear, so the clear, deep blueness of the sky has been almost sparkling in its brightness and depth. And the moon has been going through several phases, from quarter to almost full. And when I travel up or down Mt Airy Ave, I see bees and butterflies getting nectar from the flowers in the gardens in front of so many houses. My walking early in the morning, then, has been a true pleasure, and looking up has been marvelous. It has not failed to bring smiles. So it will be a "whisper" of a fall instead of the expected "shout." Some of the things that I have gotten used to and come to expect are not happening as I wanted them to, but there are also new and other plweasures to behold. I hope you are all able to find your own joys this season.