As I was puttering around this morning I thought that I felt a bit better than usual and then it dawned on me the Elixr Of Fall. MJ and I were in St. Louis for the past couple of days and we enjoyed a fabulous dinner at Bartilinos thus I changed my birthday plans for the third and final time to Bartilinos. A perfect birthday celebration for me is a movie at the Landmark Theatre at Frontenac and a dinner at Bartilinos.

I am amazed at how fast September is getting away from us! The first of my four favorite months will soon be over. I have been photographing the first leaf color changes and soon the trees will be resplendent in their coats of many colors. MJ says that she would like to see the Northern Lights…I am ready to go.

I retired and I considered that I had the good possibility of a few choice years of early retirement… But, the retirement years go by more rapidly than the work years…and they were like the blink of an eye.

While I was in Eldorado last Saturday I reminisced what it looked like over 50 years ago. There was quite a bit of commerce and bustling about. I enjoyed buying my Halloween Costume from the Ben Franklin Dime Store. I loved horror and science fiction movies. My cousin Billy and I made our own 8-millimeter film of the Creature From The Black Lagoon. I played the Creature and wore Billy’s Creature mask which was compelling. I also wore the Creature From The Black Lagoon’s Creature Hands. It was a scary sight! In those halcyon days, we trick-or-treated without our parents accompanying us. Everyone knew everyone in Eldorado. I relished the plastic pumpkin that I collected my booty in. No paper bag for me… Neva J. seemed to take as much joy in my ill-gotten gains as I did. Once when I asked her who the devil was she said that she was and gave a wicked grin.

Edgar Allen Poe was my favorite author. I gave oral book reports on some of his stories and portrayed all of the parts. I watched the original version of The Haunting which was taken from the Shirley Jackson book The Haunting Of Hill House. It was and still is the scariest movie that I have ever seen. In one scene two of the female characters are sharing a bedroom in the haunted house and are sleeping in twin beds that are on either wall of the massive room. The Haunting never shows a ghost or monster but rather the house is the malevolent entity. After one of the women is awakened by some extreme knocking and bizarre house noises she asks her friend to not hold her hand so tightly. She repeats this entreaty until she has awoken the other woman, who I learned years later was romantically interested in her, and the woman says that she is not holding her hand. She turns the lights on to reveal her arm and hand are draped outside the bed… To this day I will not drape my arm and hand outside my bed…

Fall brings us the closing of botanical life for the year. Trees and flowers appear to die…but they return in the Spring… Fall assures us that we are loved. Life slows down a bit and hope ties it’s platform shoes. It is time to have some fun chills and some thankfulness and to turn our attention to helping others.