When I'm Sixty-Four

Remember that Beatles song, When I'm Sixty-Four? Memory Hazy? Click that song title to hear it now!

Not long after I turned on the radio Sunday morning, Sept. 19th, I heard them singing it. That really brightened my day, because on Sunday I turned 64!

It was a quiet day. My best friend, Cleta, gave me a beautiful card and a Chicago Cubs baseball cap. I left mine in my motel room in June when I visited Chicago for the 50th Reunion of my eighth grade class. I'm thrilled that Cleta replaced it for me! A perfect gift!

My friend, Polly, phoned to wish me "Happy Birthday." She and I have known each other since the late 1970s, when we both lived in Chicago. Now she lives in North Hollywood, about 15 miles away. I always enjoy hearing from her.

Cynthia Cavanaugh, a grammar school classmate of mine, sent me a birthday e-card. She and I have been exchanging emails for the past year. I saw Cynthia in 1978 at the 20th Reunion of the Morton High School Class of 1958. We met again last year at an alumni reunion for graduates of St. Leonard's in Berwyn, Illinois. Cynthia and I, as well as 22 others, attended the 50th Reunion of the St. Leonard's Class of 1954 on June 5th of this year. Cynthia looks as beautiful today as she did when we were in grammar and high school. She turned 64 five days after me, on Sept. 24th (but don't tell anyone!).

On Monday, Uncle Bob drove down from Ojai for a doctor's appointment. He stopped by to have lunch with us. We treated him to Pepe's grill in a bowling alley down the street, nothing fancy, just a good place to have a home-cooked meal.

Polly's card arrived Monday. She usually makes cards from scratch, but this time she sent me a Far Side card. They always crack me up.

So it goes. That's what my life was like when I turned 64.

Leaves of Fire

Living where I do in Los Angeles, there aren't too many maples and elms and oaks. But just a half-mile away, there are a few that arch over Barrington, one of the major north-south streets here on the westside. Their leaves are now ablaze in color, reminding me of many autumns in Chicago and its western suburbs, where autumn is really autumn.

The danger in Los Angeles this time of year is fire. Forest fires are frightening. When the big forest fire hit Malibu in October 1993, I saw the Santa Monica Mountains ablaze above Sunset Boulevard from Pacific Coast Highway to U.S. 101, a distance of about 12-15 miles. My fear was that the flames would cross Sunset and burn the homes down to where I live and beyond. Armageddon. But the fires were contained above Sunset.

Forest Fires are so frightening because they move so rapidly. I witnessed a horrible forest fire in Santa Barbara near the end of June 1990. The flames rolled down the foothills, torching one home, skipping another, then torching another, leap-frogging down the foothills, jumping across U.S. 101, and then ravaging many homes in Hope Ranch on its ways toward the ocean. More than 600 homes burned to the ground that day.

Southern Californians can empathize with the victims of the recent hurricanes that have devastated our Southern States. We know all too well about natural disasters. We pray that next time the forest fire will once again leap-frog around us or avoid us completely.

I don't even want to think about the next earthquake!

Early Autumn

I'm happy that Mischalina and Alan shared their memories and thoughts and feelings about September. If you are one of our Contributors, I hope you will follow their lead.

One of my favorite songs was written about this time of year by Ralph Burns, the gifted composer, arranger, and pianist who began his career with Woody Herman in the mid-1940s. He and other Herman band members spent Labor Day on the beach in Long Island in 1946. Ralph loved the break so much that he wrote a composition about it called Summer Sequence. The fourth part of this composition contains a beautiful melody, Early Autumn, that Ralph later arranged for the band's new tenor player, Stan Getz.

You may hear these beautiful compositions right now using either Windows Media Player or Crescendo.

September Beginnings

September marks the beginning of the new semester for me. It means a new lecture hall filled with new expectant faces. Fresh blood to open up to and teach. Beautiful new ideas floating around in the air. You can step into a classroom and smell that mingling odor of both fear and excitement. My students always try their hardest to swallow their fear and take the first step with a question or an original thought. I wouldn't take back one student's statement for the life of me. Everything spoken in the lecture hall is sacred.

While the leaves are dying outside, September marks the beginning of many lives in my family. Adeline, my precious grandmother, was born the first day of September. My uncle was born September 17th. He is the only brother surviving in my father's family. September 21st marks the birth of my mother. If it were not for her, I would not be writing this under the fall foliage watching the rain clouds gather for one last hoorah. September 27th marks a day of marriage between my parents. Though the marriage is now broken and my father now deceased, the day is still marked on Mother's calendar and she still sings a song of gladness for all that they shared. She knows that were it not for their union, her darling children would not be living.

The rain has just started here in a mist. I can smell the wet pavement and its acrid smell hits my nostrils just right. Rotting leaves scatter about my feet. Fall comes early here where I live. At the end of August, the trees are already feeling the ache of the heaviness of their leaves. Shedding their bark and upper foliage creates a beautiful carpet and canopy of color. If Fall were a person, it would be the most beautiful redhead with dark eyes and a full rich smile. Playfully, she would toss her red curls around and laugh with the crisp wind.

I can only hope in the month to come that my students find nature to be inspiring in their thoughts. When a student can bring nature into Shakespeare, truly it is a blessed occasion.

Life is a beautiful richness that is only further amplified in falltime.

-Mischalina

September 1998--North Carolina

I had a September similar to the one George describes in his e-mail about the Smokies. In 1998, we decided to see the autumn leaves in the mountains of western North Carolina, and after visiting family in Raleigh, drove to Asheville, home of author Thomas Wolfe (Look Homeward, Angel, etc.). Only my second time there, and the first time, in the 1960s, I had missed touring his childhood home because it was closed for renovation. I didn't get to see the home the second time either, because someone had intentionally burned it down!

The rest of the trip went much better, fortunately. We went to dinner at the Grove Park Inn and became aware for the first time then that it was a premiere example of Arts & Crafts-era architectural design. Turns out they hold one of the main Arts & Crafts conventions there every year. The car rental agency had given us a convertible for no extra charge, and after we left Asheville, we drove with the top down along two-lane mountain roads just looking up at the trees. Highlands was a beautiful little town, and we met some great people at a B&B there. We timed the season just right, and most of the leaves had just turned.

We went through Carl Sandburg's home near Flat Rock, which we also came across by accident. It was on a hill next to a pond on a very picturesque piece of property. As it turned out, Sandburg had moved there in part so his wife could raise her prise-winning goats on the land. Having really only known about his urban poetry from his Chicago days, I hadn't realized he spent much of the last half of his life in rural North Carolina.

After North Carolina, we drove through part of eastern Tennessee and saw several civil war battlefields, Andrew Jackson's Hermitage, the University of the South and Nashville. If you ever get a chance to see Chickamauga, just south of Chattanooga in northern Georgia, do it--it is pristine, and gives you a real sense of how the landscape looked and felt during the period. Ambrose Bierce wrote a superb piece about the battle, and there's a monument to his unit (under General Hazen, I believe) at the site. The Confederates won this battle, and I think the Union lost a lot of men there.

Nashville, of course, has RCA Studio B, where Elvis, Roy Orbison and Chet Atkins, among others recorded. We had fun at Sammy B's nearby, a lunch place frequented by music industry people.

It doesn't occur enough to people not from that part of the country to visit, and September is definitely the best time to do it. We wished we had spent more time in the mountains of North Carolina than we did--it's a scenic, unspoiled area. I've never seen so many waterfalls. Highlands would be a good central place there to stay, and then you could take day trips to other parts of the mountains.

Septembers Past

Now that September is here, if you're a Flatted Fifth Contributor, why not Post an Entry about Septembers past? If you're not a Contributor, scroll down the sidebar on the right and click the "Register" button. It's pretty easy!

I like taking vacations in late September and early October. If you're going to New England, that's the best time to enjoy fall colors. September is also a great time to visit our National Parks, such as the Great Smoky Mountains, because there are fewer visitors than in the summer months now that school is back in session.

I remember one September when my former wife and I visited the Smokies and then drove up Skyline Drive. What a magnificent journey! Another time we drove the backroads of New Hampshire and Vermont, a great way to see those states.

Some visitors even take along rice paper to trace tombstone engravings. Many tombstones are for people who lived and died in the 18th and 17th centuries. The first thing you notice is how young people were when they died. Not many people lived past the age of 40. The second thing you notice is how many children died as infants or before they reached the age of ten.

One of my favorite places to visit is Saxons River in southern Vermont, just west of the Connecticut River. There is a cemetery next to the Rockingham Meeting House. As you look at the tombstones, your initial sense of morbidity gives way to a strong realization that each tombstone signifies someone who lived long ago. Think about them; pray for them.

Another place I like to visit in September is Wisconsin. As a boy growing up just outside Chicago, my parents and I spent many summer weekends in Twin Lakes, just north of the Illinois border, about 10 miles east of Lake Geneva. I loved to go swimming, spending all morning and all afternoon in the water.

Sometimes we would drive to Wisconsin Dells for the weekend. We always went to see the Indian musical in the evenings at Stand Rock, where the highlight of the evening was the singing of Indian Love Call.

Door County was my favorite place in Wisconsin, but not because of its beauty or anything like that. Not at all. Door County was home to my favorite diner, a small restaurant with a triple u-shaped counter. Lionel trains ran around the counter delivering orders! To a boy of the 1940s and 1950s, that was so cool!

What about you? What do you like best about September? I bet you have some wonderful memories, too! Why not write about it for The Flatted Fifth! Let's hear from you!