TIMES CHANGE

Saturday morning.
40+ degrees last night.
I would have used a degree symbol but I don’t know how to do that.

Weather is predicting 40 tonight.

And soon we go North to close up camp. Brrrr!

Dear Wife is planning to take Grandchildren to a rural orchard today to apple pick, wagon ride, hot dog eat, and cider and doughnut eat and relive the great days of doing same with our kids.

We used to do it once a year, a lifetime ago. A tradition.

Into a station wagon would go First Dog; Gramma Gaines; Dear Wife; our two kids; and myself and a camera and off we would go to this same orchard [order of passengers and cargo does not reflect relative importance].

We would do the cider and all of the above and then stop on the way home at a German eatery near the orchard.
Did this for years and years.

And then the kids grew and Gramma died. And First Dog passed away.

Times change.

And now the Grandkids are here.

And Dear Wife redoes the tradition.

You do what you can.

Seems a bit early, but why not?

We were visiting an upscale mall last week for some shopping and some very good dining, and in Macy’s, a store we dearly love, Christmas decorations already are being set out on one floor – trees and decorations and Santas.

Seems a bit early, but why not?

Times change.

We still think of Macy’s as Hudson’s, J.L. to be exact, in our minds, still the greatest department store ever to grace the world of retail marketing.

But that is another story.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone, Long Time Passing? as the song lyric so eloquently says?

It does not take much to set us to thinking of the 1960’s, so much a pivotal decade, so much so in so many ways.

The death of Mary Travers is a reminder of so many things.

We were not so much fans of her as of her group, as of her type of music, immortal folk music.
So many artists; so many coffee shops; so many dragons to slay; so many battles to be won.

The early 60’s – so very important a period.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood….

Many roads diverged in a lot of woods that decade, and we all took the roads we took.