The days are getting shorter. The evening shadows fall. Cool air is resplendent in Brooks Pond. There is hope for good. The Cubs lost, but there is next year. A single bird tweets to its children that it is time to come home. They are out doing what kids do in the fall. Jay Bird is watching Lassie on TV. Jay B. likes the adventures of Timmy and Lassie on Sunday night. Soon it will be time for bed and school on Monday morning. Jay Bird considers how regular life is with Monday through Friday school, and then the fun weekends. The Thing played at the Orpheum Theatre. It is a scary flick with James Arness playing the monster. The same actor who portrayed Marshall Dillon on Gunsmoke. Or as Chester called him, Mr. Dillon. Jay Bird did not often see Gunsmoke, as it was after his bedtime.

Autumn comes with what is and what was. The Bullfrog Quartet has on their L.L. Bean Sweaters. The days are warm, but the nights are cold. At least cold now but later in the winter, it will seem temperate. Soon, it will be prime leaf-viewing season. My birthday week is the epitome of changing leaves. It was October 1963 when we sat on the wrap-around front porch of the Victorian Haunted House we rented in Eldorado. We watched the Eldorado Eagles Football Team play across the Illinois Avenue. Uncle Bill Junior, and Jay Bird. The air was brisk. The lights were bright. The fans cheered. It was another world. There was a well in the backyard from which emanated weird sounds. The football players appeared spectral under the lights. Junior smoked Pall Malls and Bill L & M cigarettes. They spoke of their World War II experiences and laughed about unseen events, at least to Jay Bird.

A mournful cry comes over Brooks Pond. It is dark and impossible to see where it is coming from. It sounds a bit like a wolf and a lamb talking. Could it be a sad child? At first, it sounds like a Halloween sound effect. The longer it goes, the more frightening it seems. The Bullfrogs sing in muted tones this evening. The crying wolf-lamb-child has affected their resonance. They hum their musical score, listening to a mixture of fear and frivolity. Are we headed to the zenith or the abyss? Did the wolf prevail or the lamb? Was the child part of the guttural cry or an observer of the eternal fight of good and evil?