Fall is a season you either love or hate. It’s a time when nature sends a message: “we’re shutting down for a while”. Like the leaves on the pier in the picture. Turning color and falling. Not to return until spring. The days grow shorter. Less sunshine.
Those of us who have grown older feel the seasons and equate them to our lives. We sense we are shutting down like the seasons. Grandkids are off to college and we’re off to the doctor for some new ailment. Our energy level is like the sunshine. In the fall of our lives, we have less and less.
Today I was tempted to drive around the neighborhood and take pictures of all the front porches that were installed right after 9/11. Nearly every house, including mine, added something like a porch in front of the house. It was a big trend, bigger than the ice bucket trend. People wanted to be more neighborly. If we just went back to that maybe it would solve some of our problems. Sit in front of the house and talk to the neighbors who walked by. Get to know those dog walkers.
I was in and out of the neighborhood a lot over Labor Day. Not once, in dozens of houses, did I see a single person sitting in one of those front porches. Like most fads, it came and went. We spend our lives indoors. So fall changes nothing in the neighborhood. Kids will still be in front of the TV or the computer or on the couch with the I phone. The only change, the grill in the back of the house will be covered for the season.
We are back to our lives as isolationists. This is a season that has overtaken the country. It puts a chill on society. President Reagan once said, “it’s morning in America” in his political commercial that goes around the Internet every election season. Maybe its time to say , “it’s fall in America” for lot’s of reasons.
