Growing Pains

Hello World, Happy Jewish New Year! Once back-to-school is well and truly upon us, you know it will soon be time to break out the apples and honey, and don't spare the challah bread, my good man. I won't say that everyone turns Jewish for Rosh Hashanah (in the same way that everybody is Irish on St. Patrick's Day) but here in New York, it's any excuse for a party, and Jewish New Year is as good a reason as any, I dare say. It sounds like a jolly time, by all accounts, full of food, folks, and fun, and The Holiday Police notwithstanding, I say go ahead and jump right on that bandwagon, and there is no wrong way to celebrate. Also happening this week on Friday is the first day of Fall, and no matter where you are, you can't take 2 steps without tripping over somebody's Fall Festival, Harvest Fair, or Autumn Jamboree, by golly. A cornucopia of seasonal events is certainly out there for the picking, and in abundance, so I encourage everyone to get out there and hit every hayride, corn maze, or pumpkin patch you can find. Apple cider, anyone? Speaking of seasons, it's possible that no one was more surprised than me when the new fall TV season started, and I was checking out the program listings, only to find teams already playing ice hockey, of all things. (Keep in mind that the Stanley Cup isn't awarded to anybody until June - JUNE! - so that tells you something right there.) The regular season gets underway on October 4th, which is basically right around the corner, and entering that perilous time of year when fans in multi-sport cities can watch 3 of their teams lose on the same day, alas. And speaking of losers, after the (perhaps misguided) optimism of pre-season football, it came as a harsh dose of reality and bitter pill to swallow when both the Jets and Giants lost their first 2 games right out of the gate, thanks not. Of course, no one was expecting much out of the Gang Green camp to begin with, but the members of Big Blue were supposed to have their act together, and look like a contender right from the opening kickoff. So I guess it's back to the drawing board for these 2 clubs, and that's not just a bunch of Xs and Os, believe me. And while we're on the subject of football, we get this curious tidbit from the TV Listings Best Bets in our local newspaper: ========================== Sam Darnold and the USC Trojans have high expectations this season in the Pac-12. Darnold solidified himself last season when as a freshman, he led USC to a Rose Bowl victory. ========================== Excuse me??? I'm not exactly sure what the young man may have done to "solidify" himself, but then again, there are many things in this world that are better left unknown. Like "mystery meat" in schools, or unidentified toxic waste in landfills, there's a reason for Thomas Gray's venerable observation, "Ignorance is bliss," and I don't mind saying that I am unanimous (not to mention, solidified) in that. This next bit qualifies as a generational divide, which will only make sense to those people "of a certain age," so anyone out there in the wide world who wasn't born before 1960, you should probably skip this part. Yesterday after work, I found myself coming home behind a large white truck that was plastered with the word NIXON all over it, on every side, including the hood and side doors, for all the world to see. It obviously had no connection to the past president (for instance, it wasn't a tour bus ferrying around a curated exhibit from his library for the benefit of those outside of the Yorba Linda area) and I couldn't help but shake my head in wonder, and question why anybody would choose to pick that name for their business, after the way things turned out on that front. On the other hand, these people are apparently Nixon Uniform Services, providing a variety of textile products to the health care, food service, maintenance, and hospitality industries - and presumably doing this for generations of the same regrettably-named family, without a hint of scandal anywhere along the way. In fact, anyone who has driven behind one of their trucks can tell you that they are proud to announce "GROW WITH NIXON" in bold letters painted on several sides, and seemingly without irony of any sort. As a slogan, I would have to consider "Grow with Nixon" to be safe, if unimaginative, and I'm pretty sure we could all do better, most of us without even trying. Here's my suggestion: "I am not a smock." And speaking of textiles, alert readers will be relieved to hear that I did finally make some headway on my vast and smelly piles of old moldy camping laundry strewn about, 2 months later, until at last, every beach towel, every sock, every T-shirt, and every swimsuit has been washed clean of sand, salt water, smoke, and seaweed for another year. Unfortunately, even clean laundry lacks the capacity (or, in my personal conviction, the willingness) to climb the stairs and put itself away in the attic with my camping supplies, so that still remains to be done. No thanks to the fact that it's been in the 80's around here since we came back from our ill-fated pool party up north, and about the last place I feel like going is into the attic under those conditions, where the temperatures would rival those of the busiest blast furnaces in Pittsburgh, from the heyday of U.S. Steel, I don't mind saying. I was thinking of contacting Sam Darnold to trot the camping paraphernalia aloft to the upper reaches, but let's face it, after he went to so much trouble to solidify himself, far be it from me to have him smelted back down again. After all, I am not a CREEP. (Youngsters, please ask your grandparents about that one.) Watergate salad, anyone? Elle