I mowed the grass this morning and there they were, the first telltale signs of the impending fall. Several dead leaves laid on the lawn and they weren’t from storm damage. It’s only the third week of the month of August I thought to myself and here we are mired in the dog days of what many believe is the last full month of summer. There have been other signs of the end of summer like acorns in the driveway and the ripened choke cherries. Sumac getting red. Except for the tomatoes, most of the garden is done and at night it’s now dark at eight thirty. But these are seasonal things I have grown to except and respect. There is nothing on Gods green earth we can do to alter that. When I was a young man summers just came and went and I never thought much of it. But, as I have now become a tired old senior citizen, I realize that those summer hiatuses I love are limited and I need to make the most of each and every one.
This year though, the pandemic came along and the best laid plans went out the window. The lists of do’s and don’ts I had learned, had far more don’ts then dos. My somewhat carefully structured life became confused and unhinged. Change come’s hard at my age. Some of it may be stubbornness because of what I had enjoyed and had been enjoying was tried and true but part of it is, I just didn’t have the time or desire to try new ways to live my life. I had never thought what would it be like to not hug my family and friends. Worship the way, I had for fifty years. I wanted to shop in the stores without masks and temperature checks. I wanted to have company and laugh around the campfire. Yes, it was a whole new world. There seemed to be so much confusion in the world and yet so many different opinions of how to act and even out right mutiny from some. Seemingly there was no one in charge. Every state, every county and city had their own program. It seemed to me to be a recipe for disaster.
When you think about it, eventually out of these disasters and calamities that we didn’t expect, come those whose words sooth the masses. Right or wrong these leaders try to gather the best minds and the best information and pass it on to the population. Their only agenda is to ease the suffering. Criticism seems to be in short supply for those who try their best to rectifie a situation and are honest about it, no matter the outcome. Prudent people realize that all of the answers aren’t always there and there may not even be one. But when you do take a wrong path the best route forward is to take a step back and then never giving up, go forward again. But when you refuse to admit you were wrong and continue on the same wrong course it would seem that at some point the truth catches up with the wrong doings and then things are a whole lot worse for everyone. So even though the summer I so revered, became compromised by a pandemic and the politics it spawned, I need to hold out hope for a better one next year. A hope that a lesson will be learned from the mess that was made. That we will hold dear the memories of those who were lost and resolve to be better prepared for the next time this happens-- as it will. These aren’t really changes. Those choices have always been with us. We have always had rights and wrongs and politics. As Thomas Pain said, “These are the times that try mans souls.” I really believe he meant these are the times that test man’s souls, to make better choices between right and wrong.
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