A Day Ending In Fire
I want to think of Fall as the season of red and yellow maple trees, orange pumpkins, and children under the supervision of nearby parents, holding an open pillow case at a front door. On Halloween the sack grows heavier by the minute with treats collected from the neighbors. Fall is truly a season of fulfillment, of special holidays. Who does not enjoy Thanksgiving, our national harvest festival? There is no comparable occasion, when we as a people celebrate the gifts of Nature, a holiday relatively uncontaminated by our overweening desire for more profit.
I know that I am willfully forgetting, choosing not to remember that the material cause of the Fall colors, and the fruitful harvest is death. Leaves have reached the end of their life cycle, their function of transforming carbon by photosynthesis into nourishment for the tree. There is an end as definitely as there was a spring time beginning. The same may be said of the produce of the field.
Yesterday I bid farewell to a vehicle that has served us well since we purchased it new in 2005. The Toyota Matrix had 1
98K miles on the odometer. The design of Toyota engineers, and the quality of the Toyota manufacturing philosophy served to make the automobile a much appreciated tool of our day to day experience for a long time. I 
was sad to part with the car. We donated it to NPR. The cost of the clutch repair which will have to be done soon was more than the value of the vehicle. I watched the blue compact vehicle being pulled onto the flatbed. I shook the drivers hand. A small part of me left on that flatbed tow truck with the Toyota Matrix.
I had coffee with a new friend who lives in Batavia yesterday. He is a writer and a consultant for companies, educational institutions. For an hour we exchanged thoughts that we’ve held in mind lately, things that puzzle us, for which we have no answer. We discussed the future prospects for employment in general — given the acceleration in computing advances, and the cutting edge work in biotech being done by many thousands world side. We agreed this is the precursor to large scale unemployment, as “machines” will perform work better and with less cost than a human worker. The concern about loss of income aside, what of the meaning of one’s life that is often mediated though one’s profession?
Naturally we discussed politics. How could we not under present circumstances. Mention was made of the relative amount of funds in the campaign “kitty” of the Trump/Republican party and that of the opposing Democratic party candidates combined. I found myself wondering if the Democratic candidate will have about as much chance to prevail in November of 2020 as did Pickets men against the massed Federal artillery on Cemetery Ridge, Gettysburg on July 3, 1863.
Yesterday’s western sky glowed brilliant red at sunset.
Is that California burning?
2 thoughts on “A Day Ending In Fire”
Jerry-as always a good blog writing from you, and as always, thought provoking. However, what left me thought provoked about during this writing, was its unanswered and perhaps inadvertent question of “Who doesn’t like Thanksgiving” which made me think of perhaps the homeless in downtown Chicago, who would love someone rushing to catch their Metra train, to wish them a simple happy Thanksgiving rather than pretend they are not standing or sitting on Adams Street by Union Station asking for a small handout from people as they are heading home for a Thanksgiving feast the next day. Or, drug addicts, wherever they may be, who aren’t thinking about Thanksgiving at all, because there is no room to in their world of their addiction. Hopefully, each of us will remember them and when counting our own blessings on or before Thanksgiving, try to figure out a way to give someone not celebrating Thanksgiving, a way to also feel good about themselves regardless of their circumstance. Perhaps, by just a smile. Or, a non-judgemental fulfillment of their handout request, to see we notice them and remind them they too count and have something to also be thankful for. People grow by trust and respect and by our remembering each person counts, no matter their circumstance.
Thanks for triggering me to express this, especially as Thanksgiving Day begins to approach.
Jeff
Jeff, some good points well expressed. We ought to do whatever we can do for the less fortunate. If circumstances had developed differently we would be in their place.