Made of Silver, Not of Clay

I took a vacation day yesterday-I'm doing this more and more often as I start to count down the days until I stop going to work (cynics would point out I stopped working years ago) not that I have a specific date in mind or a plan as to what I'll do with the rest of my life when I do.

I had a nice day to not have to go to work. It was a classic Autumnal Day in New England meaning that in light of the strong breezes we've had for most of the last week I no longer need to strain my neck looking up at the tree branches to see the colorful leaves, but, rather, can look on the ground where they all are now.

We have no trees on our property but we have plenty of leaves all over everywhere. If life were fair, in the summer we'd have shade from the same trees whose leaves we'll have to pick up eventually, but (as we both know) life isn't fair. Or South of Saginaw, as John Domanski used to say when we knew one another while assigned to Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland.

I hate leaf blowers-I regard them as a more perfect symbol of America than a bald eagle. They are, to me, everything obnoxious that so many others around the world see when they look at us, and we're clueless as to the damage we're doing.

Leaf blowers make a large amount of noise, spew a huge amount of pollution into a shared environment and do not pick up any leaves at all, but blow them off our property and (usually) out into the street where they become every one's problem making for treacherous walking and driving in the dark and rain that ends so many of our already-shortened days this time of year.

I have two very large composting bins in our backyard and visit the Agway store to get the biologics to help decompose the fallen leaves (which I eventually gather up, though not today) and return them to the soil in the garden patch that our daughter has now taken over and works every year.

Yeah, the great mandela of life and all that jazz. I'll bet if I just stop typing I can hear Steve Perry.
-bill kenny