So, yes, it’s autumn, as Arlo notes, though, as Real Life Adventures counters, not so’s you’d notice.
The important thing around here is that we want a spectacular autumn and it’s a crap shoot each year.
Sometimes, it’s just kind of blah. Sometimes, just as it’s looking really good, there’s a storm that blows everything off the trees. And every few years, it’s like a calendar.
For tourists, coming out for leaf season is a roll of the dice, because you could be too early or too late or it could just be a lousy year or you could hit the jackpot.
Back in 1987, when I was living in Colorado Springs, I had a friend get married (third time’s the charm) and they decided to go see the leaves. I suggested they fly into Syracuse, go through the Adirondacks and then come down through Vermont and New Hampshire.
When he got back, I asked how it went and he said it rained the whole time. I said I was sorry and he said, no, it was fantastic and he’d never seen anything like it.
That was the moment I decided that 20 years of living somewhere else was enough and began looking for jobs in the North Country.
Only took me six months, so I was readily in place for the next autumn.
For those who don’t live in maple country, Stephen Collins notes another aspect of autumn.
This is only a piece of a longer cartoon here which made me laugh but might have a different effect on you. Click at your peril.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Maybe I shouldn’t say this, because it’s probably not in their contract, but our post office just puts the new phone books in a shopping cart in the lobby so you can take one if you’d like.
They used to put a delivery card for one in each of our boxes and then we’d go to the desk and get it and put it in the trash. This is more practical.
Most people aren’t in the white pages anymore, so I suspect most of the people who take them have ads in the yellow pages and want a copy. Not sure why anyone else would want one, unless they don’t have any Googles where they live.
Used to be that phone books worked as booster seats for little kids at the dinner table, but you’d have to grab a half-dozen to make that work now.
As for these gags, phones are so much part of our lives that they make an interesting generation gap item. One of my better reporters is a 12-year-old named Sylvia, and when she came to a workshop, I greeted her and then said to her mom, “So you’re Sylvia’s Mother.”
No chuckle. I suppose she’s only in her mid-30s, but, in any case, she didn’t recognize the song, either.
So I sent them links to the Dr. Hook video, plus another video about the song itself
Sylvia knew about payphones, but not how they worked, so she was blindsided by the operator saying he had to keep putting in more money. However, what really blew her away was the idea that every house had one landline, such that, when somebody wanted to talk to you, they might have to go through your mother to do it.
Which is to say, she was okay with the technological change, but the sociological change really made her rethink things.
Speaking of a great fall I’d like to see
I’m not sure what Mike Lester is saying here — he’s on record as thinking the Kavanaugh accusations are mud-slinging, so I guess he assumes it would be nothing — but I suspect part of my confusion is because there is a whole lot of timing going on that I don’t get.
If it were possible to establish that Brett Kavanaugh has enough skeletons in his closet that he should withdraw, then bring it on, yes.
But I suspect that the answer to “At long last, have you no sense of decency?” is “Nope. None at all!”
In which case, it seems to make sense for the GOP to confirm him during the lame duck session, after the mid-term elections but before the new Congress is in place.
From the Democratic point of view, since it seems impossible to hold things off until January, a sensible goal would be forcing Senators to declare themselves pro-rapist or anti-rapist prior to those mid-terms.
I’d like to get some testimony out soon, so that nobody can play the “We didn’t know” game.
Then let’s force these wavering Senators to let their constituents know where they stand before Nov 6.
Having good time; Wish I were there.
The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists are having their annual convention in Sacramento, though only half of these smiling folks are American Editorial Cartoonists — Matt Wuerker on the left, and Ann Telnaes next to him.
From there, it is Zunar, the courageous Malaysian who faced down a potential 30-year prison sentence with the same cheerful grin seen here, and French cartoonist Patrick Chappate, whose work often appears in the NYTimes.
I’m hating social media right now, because I’m seeing a lot of pics like this and hearing about great sessions, but I had to make a choice between AAEC this week or CXC next week.
I couldn’t afford to do both, while the fact that they’re one after another would have totally messed up my work schedule on the job that actually pays my bills.
So, tune in next week for my reports from Columbus, and, meanwhile, watch for the #SacAAEC hashtag on Twitter.
In one of William Marshall’s “New York Detective” novels, set in the 1880s, the first few (a couple of dozen?) telephones have just been installed in New York city, essentially all to very very rich people, and while a few copies of phonebooks with the names and numbers of said owners exist, they are kept under lock and key and authorities are horrified at the thought that a grubby mere police detective would ask to look at one just to be able to solve a mere murder case.