This is it. This is the big one. September begins at midnight! My first marker of this glorious month was the Jerry Lewis Telethon that played over Labor Day for many years. I was always a Jerry Lewis fan but never more than when I witnessed his sincerity for children in need. When I watched the show I understood that my favorite third of the year had arrived. I was never a summertime person. The Ber Months are my jam. Being a classic horror film aficionado I begin my viewing of them now. The original Frankenstein movie will be on Svengoolie on METV on Saturday night. I rejoiced to discover just last month that we are now receiving METV. We used to get it and then we did not for a period of years. It has all manner of old television shows…I am speaking of the ’60s…and some wonderful kitschy commentary on the weekly horror show Svengoolie. My cousin Benda used to babysit me on Friday nights and we would watch the Friday Night Horror Show through our laced fingers covering our eyes. Friday was grocery day and Neva J and I would procure the groceries at the Eldorado Food Center I would often get a comic for 12 cents and then two pepperoni sticks for my Friday night feast. The perfect combination of these magnificent weekly occurrences made for a wonderful start to the weekend.

Today I pursued DuQuoin which was my childhood destination for the DuQuoin State Fair…which is going on as we speak. In those days DuQuoin was a magical city. I understood that DuQuoin was so much larger and more of a happening place than Eldorado where I lived. After all the State Fair boasted of hosting the Hambletonian which was the premier harness race in the nation. The famous comedian and movie star Bob Hope was a regular performer at the Fair as well as Red Skelton and even Elvis. There were my delight in those days of shows termed ‘Freak Shows.’ I saw the Headless Man as well as the Headless Woman. There was an African American man who came out on stage and danced a lively dance to a swinging band and invited us in to see exotic women…but alas I was too young. DuQuoin State Fair was mystical mysterious and otherworldly. The combination of the Carnivale Barkers and the loud music and the crush of the crowd…I became a bit dizzy with delight.

We often attended the Fair on Labor Day which was its final day of operation in DuQuoin. Often well before closing the Ferris Wheel Operator would already be closed down and in the process of disassembling the scary machine. When I mentioned to the grizzled lady that it was not closing time she responded that it was Labor Day…Kid…

Some time ago I listened to a religious radio station that had as its primary MC Sandy McCormack who had a wonderful voice for radio. I listened to Sandy on my way home from my night shift at SIUC. I found her kind voice reassuring. Later we attended church with Sandy and her husband Bruce Payne. Sadly Sandy is no longer with us. The station played a wonderful song called Ticklish Reuben. I immediately liked the song due to a previous encounter with the name Reuben. I was in a cadre of my church friends and I was listening to the pastor read from the Old Testament regarding Reuben. ‘Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power…’ Being filled with piss and vinegar as my mom often said… I stopped the reading to offer commentary on Reuben. ‘What a commendation,’ I said with some security of my position. Then the scripture passage continued, ‘Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel…’

So, I learned that sometimes people aren’t what they seem. Later when I listened to the song about Ticklish Reuben from way down in old Vermont and that he had been tickled by almost everything…including a feather and a yellow bumble bee…It stuck in my mind and I often sang it to little Aaron Jonathon and MJ.

We sally forth in our modern age with the desire to not be like the Reuben of the Old Testament. We hope that our memoir with not take an abrupt turn in the middle of the account of our life. Consistency is a mark of character. It has been said to say what you mean and mean what you say. Today we count ourselves lucky if our political leaders do not contradict themselves in the same sentence or certainly while the television camera is still affixed to their Cupie Doll grinning face.

Verbal contracts were popular when you could rely on what your fellow human being told you. I learned quickly at Southern Illinois University as a manager/administrator that my word was my bond. If I told a colleague that I would do something…I must do it. I could not stick my finger in the air to ascertain which way the wind was blowing.

What leaves me dumbstruck today is that there does not seem to be much will to hold others accountable for their lies either in the political or religious arena. Winning the position or the moment or the soundbite seems to be the controlling rationale for consistency in truth-telling.

Most of us have been tickled by a feather and perhaps some of us by a yellow bumble bee…but to base our laughter on lying is a fundamental and dangerous mistake…

Norman Vincent Peale wrote the extremely popular book The Power Of Positive Thinking. There is something to be said for not letting your age illness or station in life dominate you and become your identity. I was reading an article in the Washington Post recently that said many people are guilty of Ageism against themselves. They accept what the media and popular culture tell them as to the restrictions of their age and the diminishment of their powers. The speech of the senior citizen betrays their bias. They often refer to themselves as old or of lowered mental acuity and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My late father-in-law was an active retiree. He lived well into his 80s. I thought the other day that I am a bit like Berl in that I go to the woods every day to take photographs and walk while he went to the creek every day to fish for hours. All throughout the spring summer and fall Berl could be found on the creek bank happily and actively pulling in fish after fish. Once he turned 80 he arbitrarily decided that he was now too old for such rigorous activity and subsequently quit cold turkey. Berl put out an award-winning garden each spring. He had been a farmer and he knew how to grow vegetables. Again at 80, he decided that he was too old to do so any longer. In just a year or two he felt that he was not up to a car ride of 15 miles to see his daughter and grandsons. It is easy to submit to entropy.

It seems to me that our Pandemic has changed us all and not always for the better. We isolated ourselves to prevent catching Covid and we declined some during the isolation. I saw my friend Neal at Aldis a couple of days ago and I once again was amazed at his strength and keen mind and he is well into his 90s. In fact, my fellow congregants at First Presbyterian are by and large seniors, and some are much older than I am. I have been blown away by the activity and the workmanlike attitude of my friends in the church. Once I was bemoaning having to work at the church until I saw Clark who was another member in his 90s slowly going to the trunk of his car and retrieving a toolbox to do some work on the Sanctuary.

If you want to write then write. Just the desire to do it illustrates that you are capable of it. Or as the Bible says, ‘Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.’ Ecclesiastes 9:10

Frank Sinatra sang The days grow short when you reach September, a line from September Song. He was right…they are growing short. Again, it feels like fall. My motto is coffee with cream and an eye steadfastly affixed toward the future once September arrives. Of late, I have taken note that many refer to my favorite months as the ‘Ber Months. Yes, the following four months have my stamp of approval.

Heat slows me down and cold speeds me up…although to the outside observer, the effect may be negligible. I am just finishing Whitley Strieber’s book The Key and find his writing to be intriguing. The writing insists that a little old man who looked, by and large, human visited him in his hotel room during a book tour that he was on and told him the secrets of the world and of God as well as sundry other mysteries. I feel that the book must be the literary result of a fertile mind and a keen intellect. The author insists that his recount of what the man told him is the truth. The Key Master appeared to the author a bit angelic at times. Strieber contends that he believes that he had seen the visitor on a few occasions during his life and had spoken to him previously before the visit which is the subject of the book. We are so quick to explain strange occurrences away as a bit of bad stew as Scrooge explained Marley’s Ghost.

A fellow blogger wrote that blogging relaxed her. I agree. When I take a day off from writing I feel a bit undone. One lesson I did take away from the book is that we should always seek to understand more about our environment. Most of us believe in some type of afterlife and yet when someone claims that they have encountered the supernatural we smile and wink and long for Heaven…

September begins the Magical Months for me. These are the months that have some of our major celebrations. There is a reason that the Christmas Story intrigues us…It is incredible and mysterious.

So, we sit on a little blue sphere in the universe. What surrounds us is infinite. Our climate and ecosystem hang by a series of threads and we are the recipients of God’s goodness. We do not know where we came from and we have not seen where we we are going. The unseen is all around us and we want to say that we believe in only what we can see and feel and hear and taste. In the next breath we want to make Heaven our home…what if we can not see because we do not look…

Today our temperature has dropped 20 degrees and it is a welcome relief. Yesterday it was very hot but I did see a lot of leaves falling. I say every year that you can feel a hint of fall in August. Perhaps this year…just at its conclusion…will not disappoint.

September 1 arrives this week. Although it was brutally hot it still flew by. Such is life where you begin an event like a season of the year and you look away or become distracted for a bit…and the event or season is over.

The DuQuoin State Fair is in town. I remember when attending the Fair was the epitome of my summer. Those were the days when brightly colored lights and shows of the mysterious captivated my attention. The Fair had an unexplained mystery. Where did these people come from and where did they go when they left DuQuoin? The Carnies looked grizzled and haggard and seemed to be people who did not suffer fools gladly. In the neon-illuminated darkness, shadows loomed and danced. They beckoned to follow them around the dark corner as they had additional surprises. There was delicious fudge and fried treats and beer if you were old enough or knew someone who was.

We often went to a church meeting in Kingsport, Tennessee. I loved making this trip because the people of the Tennessee congregation were so friendly. The church had a large band. I mean a band with saxophones and trumpets and trombones and clarinets and flutes…and more. They played a marvelous song entitled, Looking For A City, and it caused me to want to look for the city. We first discovered the little-known, at the time, a restaurant called the Cracker Barrel. For years it was my favorite eatery. At times on the way home to Illinois we stopped at Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Eating at the Brass Lantern or The Peddler was a delight. Stepping into Gatlinburg was taking a trip back in time. The Smoky Mountains are hypnotic. I could and have looked at them for hours.

So fall will soon be here. Fall renews me. Great comfort is inherent in Autumn. My and Aaron’s birthdays are in Autumn. MJ’s favorite holiday Thanksgiving is in Autumn…and Christmas is coming…

Ninety-nine degrees just now and it feels like 109. Christmas is just 4 short months away. Walker’s Bluff Casino Resort opened today in our neck of the woods. We live just around the corner…as they say in Little Egypt. The opening of the Casino is something that we have been anticipating for months and years. Finally, something of substance has come to Southern Illinois. The promise and reality of economic growth for our Garden of Eden in Illinois is vibrant. Cynde Bunch and her late husband David have been a blessing to Southern Illinois.

Southern Illinois is the most lovely and scenic part of Illinois. Many who move here never leave. I have often said that it is a wonderful place to live but a difficult place to make a living. The region cries out for tourism. Many of the students at Southern Illinois University are from Chicago. Giant City State Park is just a few miles from my home. It is a beautiful display of sandstone and woods and a Lodge that is unparalleled in our state. The people of Southern Illinois are good hard-working and kind. All we need is someone to believe in us!

So…it is Christmas not in July…but in August! The early Christmas gift of Walker’s Bluff Casino Resort will bring a spring of new opportunities…

I can remember when traveling meant to me going on our annual DuQuoin State Fair Journey. We lived 50 miles away in Eldorado, Illinois and the idea of visiting the State Fair was fantastic. Then the church I attended through high school took semi-annual trips to Tennessee or Iowa once to Topeka Kansas and Lincoln, Nebraska. I felt a bit urbane and a world traveler. After Aaron and Jonathon were born we made many trips to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and ultimately a Great Western Holiday and a Great Eastern Adventure. Indeed I had gotten out of Illinois.

My lifelong friend Jeff asked me if I had ever dreamed that one day he and I would be enjoying a cigar on the streets of Paris, France. I had to admit that I had not thought about it as my travel vision had not seen that far. After visiting Paris…I want to return. The many books that I have read and the movies I have seen do not do justice to describing the beauty of the city of lights.

Travel is an investment in the well-being of your soul. For my entire career at Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale, I traveled vicariously through the hundreds of students who worked with me who were from all over the world. Their vivid descriptions of their homes enraptured me. I discovered that there is a world full of people who do not see the planet through the eyes of Americans.

I found both the west coast, California, and the east coast, New York City, to be a different America than what I was accustomed to. California had deserts and mountains and seasides and lush green valleys. Travel taught me that we midwesterners have not cornered the market on ideas and manners of living.

Thus travel has educated me as to the Kaleidoscope of humanity. We are not all of the same faith and many of us have none. So often faith is used as a cudgel rather than a comforter. People who are loud abrasive and mean are in the minority. Most of us are searching for the answers to life’s persistent questions. We care about the welfare of our fellow travelers. I watched the Republican Debate last evening and saw an impressive Nikki Haley and heard Mike Pence say that the American people need a government that is as good as they are…

It is another scorcher in Little Egypt. Summer is hanging on with a vise grip. It feels like 101 degrees. I have been reading a book by Whitley Strieber who wrote the popular book Communion several years ago about what he says is a true story of his interaction with aliens. The book is called The Key. Again his contention is that he believes an etheral figure spoke to him at length one night in his hotel room and that he explained many of the mysteries of life after death. Strieber telephoned his wife Ann and asked her to remind him of his feeling that the man really met him and was not a dream.

A commonly held belief of people who believe in Aliens is that the Aliens are simply humans that have far advanced in the evolutionary process and have returned by time machine to gawk and examine rudimentary humans. As it has been said…’ Who can say,’ But I think that I am reading more science fiction than science fact. However one of the statements by the visitor who identified himself as human was that all humans have God in them. I think that this hypothesis on the search for the etheral is true. Are we not made in the image of God according to the scriptures?

Of course, the question remains…is there intelligent life on other planets? Without begging the question as to whether there is intelligent life on Earth…I think that there must be life beyond Earth. There simply have been too many sightings of UFOs by a plethora of people for us of the family of Earth to say that we are the only ones. When I was a lad the idea of Flying Saucers and Beings from Outer Space was almost totally relegated to the Science Fiction magazines and stories. Nowadays the majority of people believe in Unidentified Flying Objects and life beyond Earth.

‘You will never believe what happened to me last night,’ Billy B. said to Chet.

‘Did it have anything to do with that humongous Flying Saucer that I saw over Eldorado and it was shining a spotlight on the Orpheum Theatre,’ Chet asked?

‘I awoke around midnight and there was a little strange man sitting beside my bed. When I asked him his name he said for me to just call him Ari as his real name would be difficult for me to pronounce. He was dressed like Sherlock Holmes with a magnificent pipe clenched firm between his teeth. He offered me a trip to the future if I would like to go. I said that I most certainly would love to go and we walked outside and a magnificent staircase descended from his Flying Saucer and we then climbed into the craft.

‘Did you recognize anyone inside the Saucer,’ Chet asked?

‘Yes, Jane was there and she was drinking a cup of hot chocolate and seemed to be having a lovely time,’ Billy B. answered.

‘Ari told me that when we arrived at his planet we will have traveled in time 1,000 years into the future,’ Billy B. said. ‘He noted that at the conclusion of our visit, we would be returned by going back in time to our present,’ Billy B. continued. ‘In fact, our Saucer should be landing in 1 minute, Billy B. said.

Two Grey Aliens exited from the Flying Saucer. ‘Greetings Chet…it is Jane and I back from the future, Billy said with a broad toothless smile as his large black eyes danced in his large grey head…

It feels like 104 degrees and it is 6:00 P:M:. Or as the old gentleman said to me last winter when it was about 10 degrees…’Where is that Global Warming that they are always telling us about?’

Hot weather tends to make us a bit crabby. This morning I swore an oath at my earbuds for not performing properly. They apologized and said that they would attempt to improve their performance once it got cooler.

I heard a presidential candidate say that if he is elected president his team is going to begin ‘slitting throats’ of government workers.

Heat makes us do strange and stranger things. It appears many of us are looking for a stand-in for Christ…not the Jesus of the Bible but our own personal definition of the Messiah. Someone who will destroy our enemies. A warrior who will defend with a blood oath our perception of America and Americans…and Faith. The Israelites in the desert commanded Aaron to fashion them a Golden Calf in the absence of Moses so they could worship the icon. They danced and made merry and indulged in orgies…understanding that they were the chosen ones and therefore could do no wrong.

I watched the former President of Harvard speak about her new book and her love of learning. Both she and her interviewer agreed that the mark of a learned person is humility that there is so much that they do not know. We could all use a dose of humility.

Hot has returned and my thoughts drift to soon being in cool Maine. Jonathon asked me if I had ever dreamed when I was a child that I would one day have the Travel Log of six trips to Maine. Maine is cool in both temperature and ambiance.

Maine is for the adventurer and for those of us who march to the tune of our own drummer. Maine is a bit like a giant reflecting pool where you can gaze in and imagine what comes next. We Liberal Arts folks love Maine. Ocean and whales and lobster and sailboats are what Maine beckons us with. Maine inspires the artist and the author.

We, humans, require a lot of downtime. We think that we do not…but we do. We need time to contemplate where we have been and where we are going. We need time to puzzle out the meaning of life and our role in it. Thinking outside of the Box is a requirement for good mental health. We need to look at the Box from the outside…it looks remarkably different than from within.

What we have heard is what we believe. We need to hear different voices. What we see is imprinted on our brains. We need to see different things. What our spirits feel is a clarion call for us. At times we must feel different things.