Welcome to September 2019
Elwood Palmer Cooper, Age 7 (1910)
My childhood memories of endless summers overlap with those of my first days at school, while I try to repress my more recent adult memories of an early September Monday when all I wanted to do was drink copious amounts of coffee and deal with the simple problem of a church van’s dead battery. It wasn’t to be so, for 18 years ago, airplanes were crashing into skyscrapers and people were dying on our soil. That was 2001, and all the September 11th memorials afterwards have been dedicated to first responders everywhere.
We as a nation have been “at war” for so long, we’ve begun to see any person who disagrees with us as an “enemy,” even if they’re our neighbor. It is time for us to learn to “make peace” again. To make peace is not to change someone else, but to allow change to happen within us. First we admit we’re not always right about everything. I personally have trouble with this hurdle. I study a lot and I’ve had a bunch of experiences, but there’s things I still don’t know. I sure didn’t sleep in a Holiday Inn last night.
Labor Day, September 2, is the unofficial end of meteorological summer. The Autumnal Equinox is when the Sun crosses the celestial equator, moving from north to south. This date, September 23, is considered to be the first day of astronomical Fall. Rather than argue when fall begins, I’m going to celebrate Fall often and early because I think we can’t party enough.
Labor Day weekend is the last big picnic weekend to get away from home. The lakes and mountains will be full of people, so drive carefully on the way home. Some folks like to do home repairs on this weekend—GIT ER DUN!
Back when my folks were young, children worked long hours, rather than going to school. Elwood Palmer Cooper, 7, had already worked for a year on this miller’s wagon in Wilmington, Delaware. He carried 25-pound bags of flour from the wagon to stores to earn 25 cents a week in spending money. (1910).
It took the Great Depression of the 1930’s to move the many unemployed adults into the children’s jobs before Americans became “ashamed of exploiting child labor.” Today we seem to prefer low prices, just as long as we don’t see the children overseas who make our clothes and shoes. The United Nations estimates 170 million children are engaged in child labor, out of the 260 million employed children around the world, the rest of whom do their work on family farms and in family enterprises. Cheap clothing, also known as “fast fashion,” is primarily responsible for the use of children in overseas factories, along with styles that change from year to year.
We can decide if we want to contribute to this cycle of perpetual poverty in these developing countries, or break the chains of ignorance and set the children free to get an education. It wasn’t but a century ago, only about 30% of American students graduated from high school, whereas now over a third of the population has a college degree. If we want to have a world with people who are more free and open, we would might do better to encourage them to grow, rather than to use them as servants or workers with no prospects for advancement.
Or we could go hang at Starbucks, where the friendly baristas have rolled out the pumpkins already. I tried the Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew, which is half the calories and carbs of the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino. If we’re going to drink coffee, at least it’s responsibly sourced. We can’t do all things, but we can do some things. At least we can use the time to think about our money and our values. Also, now’s the time to begin planning your Halloween costume, but wait on the candy buying until it goes on sale.
Constitution Day, September 17, marks the signing of this unique American document in 1787, which established our current form of government and replaced the original Articles of Confederation. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” If we’ve not lived up to this perfection yet, let’s go onto perfection in the days and years to come.
Get yerrr Pirate on!
One way we can all become one tribe again, and celebrate the joy of life is Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19. Aye, matey, ye don’t have to wear a tricornered hat, or even an eye patch, but bonus points if ye do. Just speak pirate all day long, especially to your parrot. Take off early to look for buried treasure. Tell your boss, Captain Cornie said you could. And the boss should leave early also. Happy September, my bunny friends. See you in October.
Love, Joy, and Peace,
Cornie
Blackberry Eating
By Galway Kinnell – 1927-2014
I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry-eating in late September.
Porch Swing in September
By Ted Kooser – 1939-
The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun
that bleaches its gray slats, its flowered cushion
whose flowers have faded, like those of summer,
and a small brown spider has hung out her web
on a line between porch post and chain
so that no one may swing without breaking it.
She is saying it’s time that the swinging were done with,
time that the creaking and pinging and popping
that sang through the ceiling were past,
time now for the soft vibrations of moths,
the wasp tapping each board for an entrance,
the cool dewdrops to brush from her work
every morning, one world at a time.
From Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985, by Ted Kooser, © 2005. Reprinted with permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Edward Palmer Cooper, Age 7: Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine for the National Child Labor Committee/Library of Congress.
Child labour in the fashion supply chain:
https://labs.theguardian.com/unicef-child-labour/
Statistics: Education in America, 1860-1950 | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/content/statistics-education-america-1860-1950
Americans with a college degree 1940-2018, by gender | Statista:
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