September Memo

As the temperatures of summer begin to cool, the feeling of fall is definitely in the air. I love this time of year, with the leaves beginning to turn from green to bright yellows, reds and oranges. Some days the clouds hang so low they appear to be sitting on the mountains. This time of year reminds me of many autumns spent with my family in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania when I was much younger. Those were good times, even if we didn’t always think so at the time.

We’ve had to run our furnace already, I hate running it before October. I look forward to Indian summer which should arrive any day now. Mom and I no longer have to wait with our evening walk until after supper to avoid the heat of the day; instead, we make sure we go before. It gets dark so early now that by the time supper is done it’s starting to get dark – and we haven’t even changed the clocks yet. The shorter days are not something I’m looking forward to.

This time of year however does bring folk singer/songwriter Valdy back to our area. I already have my tickets, now I just have to dig out my albums, yes I still have albums, and CD covers so he can autograph them. The George Ryga Centre is just one of the sponsors involved in bringing this talented man, along with Gary Fjellgaard, to our area. I can hardly wait.

This month a very dear friend of ours died. He suffered more than a year with cancer and now is at peace. During our 150 kilometer trip to his funeral we experienced sunshine, rain, extremely heavy downpours and construction. As we got closer to where the service would be held we encountered a lot of traffic – who knew there was a convention of old car enthusiast in town?

After being directed to a parking spot we made our way inside. If we thought it was busy outside, we were in for a shock once we walked through the doors. After standing around for several minutes looking totally bewildered I’m sure, a lady came over and asked if we were there for the funeral. When we said yes she pointed us in the right direction, I’m still not quite sure how she knew we weren’t there for the convention.

More people than expected showed up and extra chairs were brought in before the service began. I will never understand how family members are able to speak at funerals, although our friend’s brother did have a difficult time. This wasn’t the only friend who passed away recently – a woman I’ve known for a few years died earlier in the month, also of cancer. This disease is taking far too many people.

On our way home we saw the most beautiful rainbow stretched over the lake. As we drove it moved across the lake, at one point I said to Mom, "We’re going to be able to drive right under it."

As we drove closer and closer, the rainbow kept moving away from us, was it an illusion? We watched as it reached the opposite shore so we knew it wasn’t staying in one place. I never realized, rainbows do not stay put. Just as we were within reach … it disappeared. Had we driven under it? Or did it simply evaporate? Either way rainbows remain, at least to me, one of God’s most magnificent creations.

While checking the stats of our Web site this month, I noticed the same IP kept showing up. This struck me as very strange, they aren’t just checking out one or two pages, some days they check up to 20! I hope they are enjoying the site and hey, drop the guest book a line and let us know what you think of our site.

I also noticed we are getting hits from Australia, the UK and Holland, How exciting is that?

That brings me to the end of this month’s memo. With a new school year under way it’s time for me to begin calling for author visits. This takes a good amount of time as you might imagine. So I leave you for now, but I’ll be back next month. Until then, read much and be well.  J

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