Chanson d'Automne

OAFS Photo

So yes, it's October, and for my friends in the Resistance ...

Les sanglots longs

Des violons

De l'automne

Blessent mon cœur

D'une langueur

Monotone.¹

And yes, Jean has a long mustache.

Tout suffocant

Et blême, quand

Sonne l'heure,

Je me souviens

Des jours anciens

Et je pleure;

Et je m'en vais

Au vent mauvais

Qui m'emporte

Deçà, delà,

Pareil à la

Feuille morte.

That first bit was in the movie The Longest Day and also in the book by the same name by Cornelius Ryan. Messages were sent to France over the radio like this, many were just nonsense, some were actually messages. I believe this one signaled that the Allied landings were to be expected within the next 24 hours. So yeah guys, go out and blow up some German stuff.

The second bit is the rest of the poem. Ever wonder what it meant in English? Me neither, until today. Here it is, en anglais ...

When a sighing begins

In the violins

Of the autumn-song,

My heart is drowned

In the slow sound

Languorous and long

Pale as with pain,

Breath fails me when

The hours toll deep.

My thoughts recover

The days that are over,

And I weep.

And I go

Where the winds know,

Broken and brief,

To and fro,

As the winds blow

A dead leaf.²

So I started this post with a rather tongue-in-cheek attitude, then I read those words above and ...

Damn.

Things got all kinda dark and serious.

Fall is a time of mixed emotions for me, I absolutely love the season, the leaves changing color, the way the afternoon light falls upon my backyard, the fresh crispness in the air which reminds us that the cold is coming. But for now, bring in the harvest, enjoy the bounty of the earth, and, if'n you don't mind, hand me another pumpkin ale.

One of these, to be specific ...

(Source)

Don't judge, I don't drink pumpkin spice coffee or any other concoction like that, just the Pumpkinhead ale, well, pumpkin pie is nice, on two occasions, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The rest of the year it's apple pie. (No, not beer, just in the pie realm. Though apple cider ain't bad ...)

Now where was I? Oh yeah, dark and serious.

For about a decade after high school I didn't like fall, I missed playing football mostly. Then I realized that fall was awesome, fall was fun. So for nearly two decades I enjoyed fall, especially in Germany where it was the kids' soccer season. All of my kids played and I coached, refereed, and was even league commissioner one year.

It was cold, it was wet at times, but there were those days where the air was crisp and the sun shown brightly on the green football pitch. Those were superb days. We had a snack shack near the fields called the Imbiss (which is simply the German word for "snack"). Something like this ...

(Source)

Ours was rather Americanized, which was something of a disappointment, until I tried their chicken sandwich. Out of this world, even The Missus Herself has fond memories of that sandwich. (The bun was fresh and delicious and the chicken breast was an actual chicken breast, not some weird-ass patty thing which tasted "like chicken," you feel me?) Made one forget about the days where the kids were getting all wet and muddy out on the pitch. Though in hindsight, I remember those days all too well. Okay, my knees remember them.

Then just two weeks shy of Thanksgiving, one of our cats died unexpectedly. He was only five, so a holiday I truly loved was marked by tragedy.

I recovered slowly until I was enjoying fall once more, then our other German cat died. October 17th, so Halloween, ruined. But the new cats, which came home to live with us on the 20th of October made things better in short order.

I remember the boys (Pat and Tiger) but I don't let it ruin fall for me anymore. This fall, things are better, yes, we are cat-less, but we have each other. I have the better part of that deal, I have The Missus Herself, and she, well, she's stuck with me.

So I've got that going for me, hhmm, time for a Pumpkinhead, methinks ...

Ciao!

¹ First stanza of Chanson d'automne" ("Autumn Song"), a poem by Paul Verlaine (1844–1896)

² Wikipedia's translation of this poem, in a word, sucks, this one is much better and is the one I used.

Answer to yesterday's "Complete the sentence" - I Am ... all over the map.