Fall is here. I read ….

Fall is here. I read it in last week’s TRG. In fact, it arrived yesterday so we are really into fall. With three weeks into September, we only have three more “burr” months to go before we can say hello to 2021.

Like it or not, fall has brought about lots of changes in the past couple of weeks. More and more trees are starting to show their colors. Especially some of the maples.

There is still some haying going on, but chopping corn seems to have taken a front seat. In addition, soybean fields are turning and it looks like a sea of gold out there.

The forecast for the next ten days, as I write this, calls for clear or partly cloudy skies so maybe our lawn mowing chores will end or come to an end pretty soon. I should worry, son-in-law Bob Loos keeps mine in check.

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I’m hoping it will turn into an annual affair. Saturday I was back at the open house at the Greenwood Museum. What a collection of antiques they have assembled. When you look at some of the tools and machines on display it is easy to see why some like to call it the iron age. It had to be made of iron and the heavier the better.

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A program on the Planet Earth channel gets a lot of my attention. It is called Lone Star Law and carries actual stories from the Texas game wardens. While a lot of it deals with deer hunting, they do a lot of their programs on the fishing and water creatures, like oysters and crabs. I find it hard to believe so many are caught fishing without a license or aren’t aware of the laws.

There was an interesting story recently about the game wardens checking out a fisherman and then to find out he was from Iraq. This was his first introduction to life in the United States. He explained to the wardens he was not welcome in Iraq any longer as he had been helping the United States in their scraps with Iran and other Middle East countries. The wardens were very helpful in explaining the rules and regulations to him.

The parts I like best are those which deal with the fishing and other water activities. More than once a scene from Port Aransas will pop up. Then you have to keep in mind, a lot of the people there are from Mexico and some can’t speak our language, which always make things more difficult.

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In more ways than one things have been different this year. A lot of it involves the people we call the Blacks and especially when it comes to law enforcement. Maybe it is the age of the new cameras which seem to be coming in handy to record law enforcement techniques.

I’m inclined to believe a lot of this has been brought on by the way we had dealt with these people for so many years. I saw something the other day which kind of explained it a little. First we brought these people over, chained in the bottom of ships. Once they got here we used them for slaves and it wasn’t until the Civil War that we freed them.

That didn’t end it, as they were segregated, not even counted as a whole human being and forced to attend their own schools and eat in separate restaurants. The Civil Rights Act in the 1960s didn’t really change things a lot.

To be honest, people from other foreign countries were looked down on, as I recall many stories about people from Ireland. I also know about things we called people who came from Italy, and it wasn’t nice.

People continue to talk about ways to change, but the most common sense remark I have heard yet came from the movie actor Morgan Freeman. He said, “Just quit calling us blacks”.

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As you probably know, I’m a person of regular routine. One of the first things I do in the morning, after writing e-mails to the kids, is to check the weather and a couple of funeral homes. One is the Skinner Funeral Home in Cumberland, which also has homes in Turtle Lake, Rice Lake and Shell Lake.

When I checked the other day, the name of Sonnenberg came up, which didn’t mean much. Then I noticed she had lived in the Round Lake Reservation and her real Ojibwa name was Beslo-Gabowiikwe which means “Stand Close Woman”. She belonged to the Bear Clan of the Red Lake Ojibwa Nation.

The funeral home has an occasional funeral for a Native American and I need to talk to someone about all the things that are done for a funeral, which in some cases goes on for a day or more.

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The election in November is turning out to be like no other that I can remember. Hoover had been President for two years before I was born and I don’t remember much about the 1932 and 1936 elections. I do remember the 1940 election, as we held a mock election in school. Wilkie was running against Roosevelt. I remember in our election Wilkie had gotten one vote. Then there was a tie between Roosevelt and a man named Norman Thomas. He was a Socialist, but I remember my Dad saying he didn’t like either of the two main candidates but would rather vote for someone who wouldn’t get elected instead of someone he didn’t like.

I don’t know who else felt the same but was surprised there were seven votes for Thomas.

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The election this year is stranger than anything else I have ever seen. There are signs, flags, banners and what else for the Republican candidate. I never knew there were so many in the party. Back in the days, when I served as vice chair and chairman of the Clark County group, you could almost count them on one hand.

Some days it almost gets overbearing but a development last week made me chuckle a bit. Seems our vice president had stopped in Janesville and part of his speech was carried on the television news. While he hammered his fist on the podium, he kept saying we are the party of law and order.

Now, somewhere along the line, he forgot to talk to the president. He was in Nevada and the rule there was no indoor gathering of more than 50 people. Well, the president paid no attention to the rule and had a gathering anyway. So what is it going to be? Law and order or lawlessness?