This weekend was classic football weather with that crystal bite in the air and magenta leaves in transit and the distant thump of a high school marching band. We live within earshot of a high school, the one Daughter attended, and when I left the house on Saturday I could hear the drumbeat and crackling PA system that announced the players over the muffled hum of the crowd. I really love autumn.
Daughter called the night before to tell me Fall had truly arrived.
DTR: It’s football season! I’m getting those calls again for Chester Yun.
OSV: Who?
DTR: Chester Yun, the guy who had my cell phone number like five years ago before I got it. He was in major debt with football betting. As soon as the season heats up I start getting cell calls from all the people Chester beat saying they want their money.
OSV: You’d think his friends would have his new number by now.
DTR: Mom? They’re not his friends. They’re bookies.
OSV: Bookies? Are you sure?
DTR: Oh yeah, it’s always the same guys. I tell them Chester’s still not at this number and they ask me if I want to hear the point spread.
OSV: What?? What do you tell them?
DTR: The same thing I always tell them. Teachers don’t make enough money to gamble. Then I wish them luck in finding Chester.
OSV: Chester is fish food in the East River. Would you please not talk to bookies?
DTR: Mom, it’s once a year. It’s a tradition.
My tradition at this time of year is the staff/family meeting at my uncle’s nursing home up in Westchester. This uncle, my late father’s brother, was always looked after by my Dad and with his dying the torch passed to me. I visit on a regular basis and take care of other matters, which I wrote about in This Call May Be Used For Training Purposes, and I piggyback this nursing home visit with a trip to the cemetery where my parents are buried.
Facing my parents’ double headstone (they died within 4 months of each other in 2004) I can hear the gurgle of a little stream behind me. It always makes me smile because I remember the day they bought the burial plots back in the late sixties and my Mom being all pleased that they got the last family plot up against the stream so you can hear the water. My Dad, who bore a striking resemblance to Walter Matthau with a similar deadpan delivery, looked at her with a mixture of amusement and affection and said, “You know if it’s noise you’re looking for we can save a bundle on the ones close to the train tracks,” and my Mom waved her hand at him going “Oh, stop.”
It was a sweet memory of the parents I miss on a beautiful autumn day. As I looked across the wide expanse of graveyard with headstones as far as the horizon, it made me consider once again that rich or poor, black or white, great or small, the unsparing truth remains that sooner or later we all run out of road.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos give us Other Things to Consider
connected kicks
don’t forget to post your revolution
arrows and feathers
sparks are hidden in the walls. who knew?