YEP, THE SEASON'S TURNED-THE WEEKENDER

JUST WAITING

   I remember hearing a Harry Reasoner commentary many years ago where he said "Labor day was like a new, new year."  His logic was that everything sort of stars over then.

   Well, he was right that with summer ending there is a kind of final lap of the year, but as I got older, raised daughters, discovered more home owner chores and lived in the country I found that fall is something different than Reasoner's idea.

    As my friend Frank now does, I put up wood for the winter and put Hatteras shutters on a screened porch, and styrofoam around foundation, basement and/or crawl space openings. And I got out the snow shovel.

    Each step along the path toward winter reminded me, the summer party is over, the beach is closed.

     A lot about this time of year is an homage to waiting.  Maybe some fitness or travel dreams are put on the shelf until next year as we go about preparing for the oncoming end of the year holidays, a distant patch of light.

    Again, my friend Frank had a "wisdom" about the time from Thanksgiving to the New Year.  He said "nothing gets done."  
    At the time he and I were journalists who were looking to improve our lot by developing and producing a television series. I can't begin to tell you how many times I have quoted him over the years.

   But I've also learned there is a special quality to fall.  It seems to be a natural frame for reflection, gathering with family and friends, contemplating a kind of intellectual or spiritual pre winter-hibernation preparation.  

   Putting up wood, winterizing, cleaning a garden and the like are all cues for a recognition that we have about completed another circuit of the sun.  But the older we get, the more quickly the beach seems to open again. Even our waiting seems to fly by.

THE WEEKENDER VIDEO

Please take six minutes to see this

fascinating display about the real wealth 

distribution in the US.  I suspect that regardless of

what you think, you'll be amazed.

See you down the trail.

PROBLEMATIC NAPPING & GOOD NAPPING

NAPPING AS THE HOUSE BURNS

(Editor's note: Something entertaining follows in 6 paragraphs. We even made a movie for you)

     There's a lot to be said for taking a nap. But there are times when it is dangerous, as when America naps as it divides.

      I've been reading Charles Murray's COMING APART, which is kindred to Timothy Noah's THE GREAT DIVERGENCE. Now I read from David Brooks a team headed by Harvard political science professor Robert Putnam finds things really are as bad as what Murray and Noah say.

      The divergence, the coming apart is the American crisis of this decade and perhaps beyond.  Not only are the rich getting richer and the middle class shrinking, but there are large educational, cultural and social differences that increasingly divide this nation.  

     Once we prided ourselves as being a melting pot, a kind of stew of ethnicity, heritage, color, creed and belief.  For reasons well documented by Murray and Noah and according to Brooks even more alarmingly by the Harvard team, we have instead divided and set up chasms with serious implications.  

     Brooks is no practitioner of bombast.  He is reasoned, conservative and thoughtful.  What troubles me is that I've found concern in Murray and Noah, but now academics with even greater credential have said it's even worse.  Bad enough, as Brooks says, we either do something or we commit national suicide.

     All of this is a serious wake up call, but I'm not convinced we can emerge from our somnolent habits of status quo, petty and mean divisions and ludicrous diversions.  Perhaps we are in a twilight.  Once great, we refuse to acknowledge a profound weakness, sickness and divide.  We may live to see ourselves descend to statehood on par with Italy and Greece where government fiddles and naps as leadership and capacity pass us by and greatness burns away in inaction.

NOW ON A PERSONAL LEVEL

NAPS ARE GOOD

     Boomers can remember how difficult it was to get our children to nap, as we now enter a time of life when naps are, sweet and recharging. 

      There are great nappers out here on the central coast of California.  I visited them this week to take notes.

DAY FILE

LAND OF THE SLEEPERS

   These elephant seals north of San Simeon may be the most
apt nappers I've encountered.

 An occasional dip and a few bellows between snores is the order of the day.

 The walk out to their private beach is a colorful hike and

often accompanied by these little beggars. 

FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN

A CLOSER LOOK

HERE'S A NAPPING MOVIE

THE LAND OF NAPPERS IN ONE MINUTE

See you down the trail.