here comes November, but it might as well be spring

Tuesday was cool and sunny although from the terrace we could see threatening black and grey clouds doing what they do, that is, threaten - and overnight I heard thunder, heavy emphatic rain (no sprinkles) and hail. Wednesday it went from wet to dreary to misty to foggy and back to wet without dropping the dreary, and so I am reminded that November is coming. Thursday's rain started with noisy drumming after midnight, followed by hail, followed by more rain, drizzle and clouds.
I finally stepped out on the terrace, sullenly wondering whether if I had stuck to my 7th grade decision to stop getting haircuts, I would have had hair like Rapunzel's by now.
I went to school in Olden Times, variously also known as The Days of Yore or The Dark Ages. Just like the overworked serfs, we had to get up and walk over to the television to change the channel. In school, the class system was feudal: we had poor peasants - girls whose mothers didn't allow them to wear ballerinas to school because they gave the feet no support, boys whose social life was limited by the ownership of only one dinner jacket, teachers who parked their cars in nearby church parking lots and walked the rest of the way to school so they wouldn't be ashamed as they chugged past the students' parking lot. We had freaks, lepers, madmen, saints and outcasts, too, but although there were classes we did not have class solidarity. One learns early that junior high is practice for high school and high school is a brutal combat sport, you play hurt and no prisoners are taken. Rugby is for wimps. Endurance is finishing 10th grade.
Teachers who were afraid of the rose-lipped maids and lightfoot lads assigned Poems rather than ask for original products that had to be graded subjectively and therefore might lead to disagreement. In case you didn't know, a Poem is a collection of words that must be memorized in their exact order so that the words can be recited back on command lest another Poem be assigned.
I was an exceptionally good student in English, but spoke up too often because I had trouble connecting words with consequences. One morning it was announced that the school auditorium was going to be named, with great ceremony, after a distinguished graduate. After lunch in the school cafeteria, I suggested naming the cafeteria Dotheboys Hall. The English teacher was within earshot. In consequence I learned this Poem about November.

No sun--no moon!
No morn--no noon!
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--
No sky--no earthly view--
No distance looking blue--

No road--no street--
No "t'other side the way"--
No end to any Row--
No indications where the Crescents go--

No top to any steeple--
No recognitions of familiar people--
No courtesies for showing 'em--
No knowing 'em!

No mail--no post--
No news from any foreign coast--
No park--no ring--no afternoon gentility--
No company--no nobility--

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member--
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,

November!

Thomas Hood         

Adding to the bereft atmosphere that is this week's premature November, there are no more Hallowe'en decorations in the stores, apparently they were sold out by Labor Day. There are no more Thanksgiving decorations, either, except for the themed dishes. It appears that this isn't going to be a year when people decide that their Thanksgiving feast would be more festive if they invested in a set of dishes for 8 or 12, decorated with turkeys. There are plenty of such dishes marked down and lingering even though Thanksgiving is November 27th this year. A really grim sign: stores that were fully stocked with Christmas merchandise a week ago are already starting to mark it down.  I imagine we'll be looking at bunnies in February and back-to-school sales in April.

Autocorrect: guess I'm just ungrateful.

Autocorrect is no snob. It corrects me, often adding new and ridiculous dimensions to what I think I'm writing. It corrects my brilliant friends. It has changed the blog name of ajc to ANC whenever I type it, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't post from Africa.

And now, finally, Autocorrect has edited A.E.Housman.

Into my heart an air that kills

From young far cow blows

What are those blue remember hills

What spills, what farms are this

That is the LAN of los content

I see it SHi non plain

The happy highways where I went

And can out come again.

I don't think Autocorrect's work is an improvement, but then I'm the old fogy who wanted the font on every level of an outline to be the same. Go figure.

I was typing the poem, by the way, as part of a response to an invitation to a reunion of an affinity group. The affinity is that at some time or other, each of us served time at a company known as "The Hellhole," and while there we worked for or were "lent" to The World's Worst Boss. Schizoid and demented don't begin to describe this individual. Example: I receive a call while on vacation in Venice; Son of Sam insists I return to New York immediately as one of my matters is going wrong. Time zones, of course, mean nothing to SoS since he sleepeth not. What's going wrong? At the moment, he explains, nothing, but in case something should happen he would need me to handle it since he couldn't read the status memo I'd left. Oh, dear, how come? Well, hadn't he repeatedly told me that he can't read my handwriting? The memo was typed, I pointed out. You must come back on the very next flight, he insisted, I don't like to get memos in that font and you failed to observe that your secretary used the wrong kind of staple. We have a very bad connection, I can't hear you, quoth I, and just to be on the safe side I changed hotels.

When the group gathered, we all told stories - some like that one, mostly worse. Some of the former employees took requests for favorite recitations. The stories are funny when (1) you no longer work at The Hellhole, and (2) there's an open bar. At one of the last gatherings I attended, I learned that SoS had been bought out and had left the state. I hated thinking of him getting a fresh start, aren't fresh starts for the deserving? Because the real purpose of these gatherings had been to hope, collectively, that there was such a thing as Karma, and that it works.

The following fall, someone who still gets work-related nightmares and follows the fate of SoS as if tracking Eichmann reported that SoS had gone off the deep end at a client meeting. The client called an ambulance, and SoS was borne off on a stretcher, raving and shouting. This was such wonderfully satisfying news that I didn't want to attend any more gatherings. Others felt that way as well. We didn't need to. And so, I thought I would add a nostalgic - but over - tone to an email in which I closed the door on even remembering a chapter in my life where every day began with a desperate hour devoted to job-hunting. Autocorrect has other ideas about Prof. Housman's work. Well, I'll try again later; copy/paste is not as unreasoningly critical.