Fall Splendor was on full display today at Giant City. Leaf Peepers were everywhere. When I encounter them I want to say that they will enjoy their visit and that I have been there all year… October 24 is fast approaching and I feel 65 slipping away. What a glorious opportunity to bid the old age out and the new one in. It sounds a bit like Happy New Year don’t you think?

As I ponder my visage in the mirror, I see not the image of Dorian Gray looking back at me but Jay Brooks and the white hair to prove it. As a young man, I often fretted about how we would make ends meet and when they met…what it meant. As I look back I see my Guardian Angel by my side. All too often we suppose that it is our strength and cunning and skill that brings us good fortune and success and hope for the future…when in reality we are simply along for the ride and God is in control.

A lesson that I learned when I was young was that I would strive to treat everyone I met like I wanted to be treated. I wanted to understand what it was like to walk in their shoes. I knew what it felt like to be marginalized and dismissed a bit like the television character Columbo who played an apparently clueless detective whom people sold short of his abilities. I knew how a single mother felt and the challenges that she faced as Neva J raised me after her and my father’s divorce. I knew what it felt like to be a janitor and to feel as proud of my profession as a doctor or lawyer.

Success is incremental. Failure can drop suddenly. Hope is eternal. Love is the answer…