A Poem For Fall

Oh Wow October!
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It’s a fashion show:
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The Oak wears Gucci,
The maple wears Prada.
The evergreens come to watch.
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The avenue of trees
In Warananco park
Create the catwalk.
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Fallen leaves of many hues
Line the path;
A set designer’s dream.
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Squirrels dash around
Rearranging acorns…
They’re the people behind the scenes.
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It’s a cold day,
I’ve traded bathing suit
For a trench coat.
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The wind blows tree branches
Like models’ hair
Waving in front of a fan.
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This fashion week is brief.
The big shows last a few days.
Then all is bare, like the models
Undressing backstage.

Fun with words – guerilla info dumpers

Every so often I come across a phrase that is just too good not to share. When this gem hit my inbox it made my morning:
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From CNN’s weekly Newsletter “the Good Stuff” Sept 23, 2023 reported by AJ Willingham
“I met one of my favorite kinds of people the other day. As I was checking out at the craft store, the cashier read out my total: $19.44. ‘Hmm,’ he said absently. ‘June 6. A good year.’ I was busy digging for my wallet and had no idea what he was talking about, so I made a vaguely questioning sound. ‘June 6, 1944’ he repeated. ‘D-Day. When the allied forces turned the tide against the Axis powers.’ I was about to respond that I was glad I hadn’t spent three cents less when he went on: ‘That was also the year of the all-St. Louis World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals beat the St. Louis Browns. Of course, they aren’t the Browns anymore. They became the Baltimore Orioles about ten years later.’ He talked about the Orioles for a while longer and then gave a sly grin, as if he had just handed me a very old coin — interesting, worth keeping, but impossible to know what to do with. I love people like that. Let’s call them guerilla info dumpers; the ones who drop random bits of knowledge in your lap without warning because you can just tell they want to share it with the world. It feels like a little gift, doesn’t it? A gift that costs nothing, and listen, maybe it means nothing too. I doubt I will need to recall the 1944 World Series in my daily life. But now I know something I didn’t know before. That’s something to be grateful for.”