Author: Thomas Walters

Now that I’ve had my first Pumpkin Spice latte of the season, it’s time to acknowledge the new season.  Normally at this time of year, I write an Ode to Fall, a celebration of the changing seasons and all of the wonderful things to which we can look forward.  So this year, I’m taking a slightly different tack. My daughter needed to return some equipment last week to Xfinity (it’s really Comcast – they can’t fool us), which is in the local mall, and we made a short pass through Old Navy just in case they had something indispensable or on sale for her wardrobe (or mine). We then ventured into the coffee shop there, a Gloria Jean’s, and there it was on the menu board:  Pumpkin Spice. As my grandfather used to say, I can resist anything but temptation, so there it is.  Like throwing out the first pitch of the season in Fenway Park, the first pumpkin spice coffee is a tradition, a harbinger of all things Fall.  Speaking of which . . . .

Yes, yes.  I know all about marketing.  They play to the demographic.  When I shop with an online vendor, their recommendations pop up.  I’m shopping for hummingbird food or disposable latex gloves, and the next thing I know, they’re showing me lawn mowers and vacuum cleaner bags that “they think I’d like.”  Really?  How in the world did they connect those dots?  I think there are some serious glitches in the algorithm.

Yes, he provided us with generations of laughter.  The stumbling, mumbling, stuttering delivery, accompanied by a look of bewilderment, that never failed to produce everything from a chuckle to a hearty belly laugh.  Bob Newhart, who died recently at 94, gave us not just decades but generations of amusement. 

There was a hilarious cartoon in the paper this morning.  It features Garfield celebrating a full day on his new diet – by popping a donut in his mouth.  Many of us are like that.  The rewards are fleeting, followed by days, weeks, and months of anguish.  We anticipate that, for our efforts, the pounds will disappear like candlewax in bright sunlight.  But as we get older, our mobility and the impetus to exercise slip away.   I know I feel that way, when I see vigorous seniors out walking the countryside, and I think to myself, “Are they crazy?  That’s a hip just waiting to break!”

Every so often, I come across a serious topic that inspires me.  It’s a departure for my usual, lighter pieces. This was originally written as a newspaper opinion piece, and I thought that in the current political climate, it has some degree of relevance. 

What with a rumored presidential election on the horizon, as well as state primaries, alert drivers like me have noticed the proliferation of roadside campaign signs.  The traditionally tasteful small ones are out in abundance, but it seems that the more affluent candidates are purchasing and setting up much larger ones.  Some are gigantic – the size of small drive-in movie screens, so I guess size matters.  I guess those are for emphasis. They say, “We’d walk on water for . . . . . .”