The ‘ber’ months with Danahey on the Loose

 

 

It’s em-ber time.

You know – that glowing piece of burning wood in a fizzling fire.

This time period includes Septem-ber, which leads to Octo-ber and no-light Novem-ber, which leads to the burr of Decem-ber. Then come Jan-uary and Feb-uary, where many old people from the Midwest seek sun and sanctuary in warmer climes.

But back to em-ber time.

I have had quite a few metaphorical moments to mark mine for 2025.

Tom’s youngest grandson provided one. I asked him to do something funny for a photo. So he proceeded to get stuck in a piece of playground equipment, his haunches hanging high in the air. (See photo at the top.)

 

 

Also, as of this writing, there’s a pile of dirt on the street in front of my house. It appeared out of nowhere the other night. I can barely get out of my driveway. I assume I will find out what the hell it’s there for early this coming week.

In the meantime, I guess it’s good practice for maneuvering around a snowdrift. The dirt pile also reminds me of what’s left of the 42-year-old mall near where I live.

 

 

There was also an October Sunday a couple weeks ago where I found a raccoon hanging out in one of my green Groot trash containers.

Somehow, the animal managed to trap itself. The lid was closed. It just looked up at me when I went to drop some car-bage from my Camry into the container.

I tipped the bin on its side. Like a teenager getting up for school in the morning, the raccoon took its sweet time to get its fat ass moving, then waddled up a backyard fence.

Cleaning up coffee grounds wasn’t on my weekend to-do list, but so be it.  Eh. At least it wasn’t a dead possum, like I found on the back steps one summer afternoon. Luckily, that was the day garbage goes to the curb. Double-bagged in this case.

Taking a buddy to and from his office on-and-off for more than two months wasn’t on my list either. Or his. He’s trying to repair his own SUV. It’s not going well. He’s on a first name basis with staff at Harbor Freight.

Anyway, at least the Miss Daisy drives can be pretty, as the leaves blaze bright before the dying of the light. Speaking of light, the angle of the sun in late September and October isn’t conducive to driving east-west routes in the early morning or late afternoon. Anybody reading this who’s ever driven on Lake-Cook Road in the northwest suburbs knows this.

They also know how dangerously entitled doofus old guys riding bicycles in Barrington can be. The one in question one early October morning decided he would back up traffic by pedaling west down Lake-Cook during morning rush hour. In his super cute biker outfit and requisite neon vest, he backed up traffic even more by making a hand-signal for a left-hand turn.

I wanted to give him a hand signal back. Instead I yelled something like “What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?”

Like a good many people do, the old biker ignored me. Then he nonchalantly signaled for me to break the law: Drive on the shoulder around him. I did.

Just another reason to get grumpy these em-ber days, I thought.

 

 

A stop on my Uber buddy duties we made one day confirmed why the Amazon-owned grocery store has been called Whole Paycheck Foods. They had meatballs on sale for $12 a ball.

Making the drives occasionally enjoyable is when we’ve stopped to play disc golf on the way home. Hey. It’s a way cheaper 2-mile walk than golfing with clubs and balls. Trees still get in the way.

That reminds me. I have a friend somewhere in the Southwest recovering from breaking body parts. He was trying to remove a dying tree from a yard. No good deed goes unpunished. Somehow the big trunk rolled over on him.

 

 

 

Then there are the squirrels seeking accommodation in my house. I chased one of them off my balcony the other morning. It ran up to the peak of my roof and cursed at me in squirrel swears. These punks sit on my front stoop to eat walnuts and leave the crumbs. The indignity! Where’s a python when you need one?

Plus, one had the nerve to get drunk one night and drown in a friend’s pool.  I swear. This year, they behave like hair metal bands did in the late 1980s.

Still, compared to how others are having it, as an old song goes, I do remem-ber a kind of Septem-ber that was oh so mellow. Come to think of it, there are lots of September songs – some soporific, some sad and solemn, some about being or getting old, and, thankfully, at least one bouncy one. Yow.

As far as I know, none of the Septem-ber songs are about hockey. Which is what you could say about the pubs near where I live. Until now. Somebody opened one. Good timing, as the Chicago Blackhawks are predicted to finish last in their division. At least the bar there has a cool top. It looks like hockey ice, replete with skate marks.

 

 

Looking cooler was best fest buddy Tom. For the annual Chicago Beer Society picnic, he donned his big, beautiful black kilt, a professorial jacket and scully cap.

He wore that same cap a couple times when hosting a talk about cigars at a local restaurant. It made him look a bit like rowdy, rapidly aging pro golfer John Daly.

At the beer picnic, Tom looked more German than Celtic. He posed with an old dude dressed in lederhosen for comparison’s sake.

Speaking of German, a town near my abode held an Oktoberfest. Yeah, there were oompah, polka bands, beers, bratwurst – and a George Michael tribute. On a warm autumn evening, the reenactor sang “Last Christmas.” Why wouldn’t he?

I missed the Van Halen tribute the following night. The name actually is Dutch. Holland’s close to Germany. Eddie Van Halen liked Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. Close enough.

At a Fall Fest in the park near my house, we did catch Radio Gaga, which pretended to be Queen AND Lady Gaga. Which reminds me. Why are dudes sporting 1970s-style mustaches again?

Anyway, earlier that same September Saturday, playing from the very same stage, I saw a local golf-and-roll-dressed buddy reunite with his high school pals for some rockin’ in the free world. Cripes. That song is 34 years old!

That made me feel old. Again. So did hitting a birthday party for the owner of a local Irish pub.

He turned 70. The crowd at his place for his shindig thinned out by 10 p.m.

September ended with Tom, his brother and I heading to the local high school football bowl to hear an exhibition from the district’s three high school marching bands. They marched back in the day. I did, too, but not to the extent they did. Story of my life.

 

 

Nostalgia aside, the bands’ sets included the Killers’ Mr. Brightside from 2004 and Radiohead’s Creep from 1992. I felt as old as the guys in the soggy sequel to Spinal Tap looked.

Soggy, too, was the end of the evening when Tom and I hit the Irish Fest in Naperville. I learned about shillelaghs from a vendor. We heard Brigid’s Cross playing in a suburban version of a soft Irish rain. I remembered hearing them for the first time at a long-closed local, maybe for a St. Patrick’s Day gathering.

Festive, too, was taking Tom’s youngest grandson to see his brother and sister march in the Barrington High School homecoming parade. The three siblings are all in grade school, but Barrington goes all-out for its homecoming.

The parade included units from every school in the district, every high school club and cars holding graduates from days way gone by. By far, it was the most impressive high school homecoming parade I’ve ever seen.

 

 

If memory serves, all that was missing was dancing horses. But we saw those at the El Grito parade in our town.

Making the parade a real boon for Tom’s grandson was that by happenstance we wound up finding a great place to get candy the parade marchers were giving out.

The kid insisted on wearing shower slippers, because, hey, he’s a kid. While walking toward the parade route, one of the slippers broke. On a hunch, we hung back where we were – on a church lawn adjacent to the parking lot that served as the parade’s staging area.

 

 

So the boy was the first kid the candy-passers saw. He wound up with a big bag full of sweets.

I kept it. I am using it to give out on Halloween.

Sure. That sounds mean and cheap. But that afternoon, I took the three grandkids to a local candy store that was having a going-out-of-business sale. The place lasted 15 months. We stopped by in part to pay our last respects, on credit card.

Speaking of last respects, how about those Chicago Cubs? What was fun was watching them lose to the Brewers in Spanish and for free. Unimas had some of the games – which beat having to figure out which network or streaming service carried the games.

Speaking of services, for one of my day jobs I’ve written quite a few news obits lately.

One was for a local activist. I wound up going to the service and sat in the vestibule, where I belong. Turns out they locked the doors to the church during the memorial, and some people couldn’t get in. Sign of the times, I guess.

Another obit was for a local official. Nice enough guy. I found out through a mutual friend that the deceased didn’t get along well with one of his brothers. In fact, the brother wasn’t mentioned in the funeral home’s online obituary. Another sign of the times.

I wrote another about a colorful, retired Catholic priest, Back in his days as a pastor, lady parishioners made him ornately decorated vestments. He was also a fan of the local casino.

I remember hearing him give sermons as a guest priest at my local. He worked the pews, sort of like a casino lounge act.

Sometimes he would note how the readings from the Bible would double back or seemingly contradict themselves.

Paraphrasing here: He’d concluded with, “Well, that is a bit confusing. But at the end of the day, you know what’s important? Just be kind to each other. Love each other as God loves you.”

Words to remem-ber as the burr of this discontented winter approaches.

Amen.