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.

Vote As If Your Country Depended On It

DUKES FANS: “If you vote, it takes two people to overcome your ideas. But if you don’t vote, it only takes one” Ruth Edna Davis As usual, my mom’s advice was and is right on target. Election Day is less than 30 days away, and it is time to check your registration, and if you haven’t yet done so, register to vote. If you have paid even cursory attention to the news this year, you know that this is not only an unusual election but a supremely important one. This election may well be the one that determines the future structure, powers, functions, and direction that our republic will take for at least the next decade. It is vitally important that everyone who is legally able to do so register and then vote to have a say in this process. It is one of our opportunities and one of our duties as a citizen. If you do not like the outcome but did not vote, to me you have no right to complain. It is in our hands at this point, and we all need to step up. Registration deadlines for the tri-state area are October 12th-this Saturday- for Delaware, October15th for New Jersey, and Oct 21st for Pennsylvania. And if you are registered, it would probably be a good idea to check to make sure your registration is in order, especially if you have not voted in a while. Some states have removed people from the voter rolls, and they have not necessarily informed everyone who has been removed. Here is a link to a site that can help you find important registration and voting information: https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-2024/state-voting-guides.html I hope you all participate in this process; it is essential to our republic remaining a republic.

Philly:One of The Rudest Cities in the United States?

DUKES FANS: “Be the change you wish to see in the world” Mahatma Gandhi “Philadelphia Ranked Among Rudest American Big City” is what the headline read on a post that came across my phone a few weeks ago. As a lifelong resident and lover of Philadelphia, I was taken aback. My city was one of the rudest cities in the US?? My hometown?? What was going on? I read through the article and a link or two, and I was surprised by what I read. It seemed that the respondents to the questions posed in the study were residents of the cities that were being studied, and that they had to have lived there for at least a year. And the behaviors that the study focused on were things that mostly occur in ordinary, daily life, and could well be taken as indications of friendliness, rudeness, and/or self-absorption. They include not letting people merge into traffic; being too loud in public; not noticing, responding to, or helping strangers; not stopping for pedestrians, even at crosswalks, and being rude to service staff. This reminded me of a phrase that I grew up with and still try to apply today: “common courtesy.” And it seems to me as I consider that article on rude cities that “common courtesy’ has become quite uncommon in many places and at many times these days. I was raised in a working class African-American family in the 1950’s. My parents, particularly my mother, put a great stress on politeness and common courtesy. We were taught to say,” Please” and “Thank You.” If you needed to go past someone, you said, “Excuse Me,” and you said it BEFORE you started moving past them. If you were on a bus and an older person needed a place to sit, you offered your seat to them. And you tried not to be too boisterous in public. Of course, I was/am not perfect in all of these things, but they are still a part of my social DNA. And as the society around me changed, it brought new challenges to politeness and common courtesy. I first noticed it with electronic devices. People with boom boxes were sometimes not shy about letting you know that they had them, and that annoyed me, especially on public transit or when I was sitting in a park. Headphones and earbuds meant that people could be in public but also be somewhat oblivious to the fact that they were actually in public. They would sing along with the song they were listening to, and of course, when you are plugged in you need to be louder in order to hear yourself. Cell phones multiplied all of that, as people would have loud conversations as they walked down the street, waited in line at the coffee shop, and rode public transit. I was so happy when the “quiet car” became a feature on most commuter rail lines in the country. Before that I would overhear family arguments, profanity, relationship details, and even business deal details whether I wanted to or not. But COVID, to me, really damaged common courtesy the most. It was as if people felt cornered or trapped and denied something, so they had to take it out on someone and make people notice them. Driving too fast, ignoring traffic signals, blasting music out of their cars was an easy way to do that. And people started buying larger cars, more trucks and more SUV’s. The combined result of all of that was a marked increase in pedestrian and cycling deaths that is still with us. Service workers were treated with more rudeness, verbal abuse, and even violence. Transit workers, servers, and nurses all reported increases in workplace rudeness and violence; nearly half of all US nurses reported incidents of verbal abuse and physical violence in hospitals and clinics. COVID made me realize that I had to be sure I was being polite and courteous; I had to be sure that I was acting the way I wanted the world to be. I smile the vast majority of the time, and I say, “Hi”, and “Thank you” to servers, transit workers, and others who help make my life easier and more manageable. And I have noticed things improving a lot in the past year and a half, I am glad to say. It has been a while since I have seen someone cursing at a service worker or clerk in a market. Transit workers still have to put up with a lot, so I try to say, “Hi” to them and wish them a safe and good day. I don’t know if that reduces the “rudeness factor” that this study looked at, but I do not that I am doing my part. And I still love this city. And I do not want to leave. (Here is a link to the article about rudest cities, should you want to read it. https://preply.com/en/blog/rudest-cities/ And please feel free to share any thoughts, ideas, etc that you have about it and/or this newsletter)