According to the "weather forecasters", we may have snow tonight. Now, it's not as if I live in "Alaska" or anything, where I suppose that snow in early November is pretty commonplace. A former student once came back to visit from his college, St. Bonaventure, which I understand is somewhere west of Buffalo, New York. I asked him how the weather was. He said that when other students told him to expect his first snowfall by Halloween, he hadn't expected feet of snow, which is what he got. I hate hate hate when there are huge piles of snow in the street covering the already huge mountains of leaves in the street, which is what's going to happen if it actually "snows" here tonight.
There were no piles of leaves in the street when, as they say, "dinosaurs roamed the suburbs" in my youth. My backyard was actually quite large by local standards (The Mouse House, where I live now, is on a 45' x 95' lot, but my parents' house was bigger on a bigger lot) and had five or six huge oak trees in it. When it was time to rake, we all raked, all four of us, and pushed or pulled the leaves over to the stone barbecue-thingy in the corner where Jack stoked up the coals and burned leaves, all day long. As did everyone else in the neighborhood. But oh no, no more raking leaves. Much better to drive the grand slalom down every street every day for a month and a half around mountains of leaves in the road. Needless to say, the Hubs does not burn leaves, nor does he put them in the street. He gathers them up and uses them to insulate his fig trees for the winter, or mulch elsewhere. Sometimes, being Mr. Recycling is a good thing.
I finished reading The Plot Against America by Philip Roth and you should read it. Whoever you are, you should read it. I found it fascinating, and chilling. It feels too close to forecasting the future, although it's set in a fictional past. I don't believe that the Jewish people will be the first targets in America's future to come, as they were in Germany and in this book, although that's always a possibility. I believe that the first group targeted for persecution, a test, as it were, to see if "they" can get away with it, are gay people, which seems pretty clear after last week. But I'll leave you with this, which I have on a poster in my family room, in the library, and in the hallway outside the library. The speaker was a German pastor named Martin Niemoller:
In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I did not speak out because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me -
and there was no one was left to speak out for me.
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I'm watching Seinfeld
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So ... - 12.19.2006
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