Hello, October

The Month of October

Full moon October 9th

Holidays

Yom Kippur
Columbus Day
Child Health Day
Halloween
National Hispanic Heritage Month (Sep 15 through Oct 15)

Italian American Heritage Month
Polish American Heritage Month
National Breast Cancer Month
National Pizza Month
National Dessert Month
Country Music Month
National Book Fair Month

Symbols of October

• Birthstone: Opal and pink tourmaline
• Flower: Calendula
• Zodiac signs: Libra and Scorpio

Interesting Facts about October

• It is the second Autumn month.
• National Fire Prevention Week falls during the week of October 9 each year. It commemorates the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
• October in the Northern Hemisphere is similar to April in the Southern Hemisphere.
• The leaves of trees often begin to change their colors during this month.
• The World Series for Major League Baseball generally takes place during October.
• The NBA, National Basketball League, and the NHL, National Hockey League, both begin their seasons in October.
• There are many health observances that have October as their national month. These include Healthy Lungs, Breast Cancer, Lupus, Spina Bifida, Blindness, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
• The United Kingdom celebrates the 21st as Apple Day.

 

Are you ready for some football?

Fall has become more calm now that only two of our four grand kids are involved in sports.  We used to have to juggle cross country, soccer and football but with Brooke in college and Courtney interested in other things we just need to schedule two football games a week. 

Cole plays high school freshman football during the week and Nick plays eighth grade football on the weekends.  We have at least four more years of this to look forward to.  And I do mean look forward because watching our grandkids play their various sports has always been a very enjoyable pass time. 

Shown below is Cole #4 bulldozing his way into the end zone and Nick #10 setting up to throw a pass.  Both guys continue to entertain. 

End of An Era

 It all began in the spring of 1977-over 45 years ago as of this writing. We had just come off an especially hard winter which featured an ice storm in February of that year that left us without electricity for 4 days.  The house we lived in did not have a fireplace so we had to move to my parent's house.  They didn't have a fireplace either but they did have a gas kitchen range so we lit the oven, left it open and managed to stay warm by huddling in front of it.   Picture that with two children-one toddler and a baby.

It was at that time that I vowed we would somehow figure out a way to install a wood burning stove in our poorly insulated 1840 house because I was determined that we would never be forced out of our house again.  So over the summer of 1977 we did our due diligence, talked to some friends who had wood burning stoves, consulted a mason for a chimney and set the whole process in motion.

By the time winter rolled around in 1977 we had our first wood burning stove up and running.  It was a Franklin stove that we had bought on sale for $100.  While our chimney was being built I had bought a chain saw and with the help of a friend who taught me how to use it I worked up a supply of fire wood.  We were fortunate in that department because my parents lived on 4 acres of land and there was an ample supply dead wood around that could be easily converted to firewood. Nineteen seventy seven was also the year I bought my first pickup truck.  It was a little Chevy step side, 6 cylinder engine, 3 speed stick shift.  It was a great little truck.   So with all of this stuff I was officially a wood whore as my friend Brian called it!

The Franklin stove was great for a year or two but it wasn't air tight so it wouldn't hold a fire all night.  From there I went to an awesome stove called a Vermont Castings Defiant.  It churned out enormous quantities of heat and held a fire all night.  We used that until we sold the old house in 1986 and moved to our current residence.  At that point we bought a smaller Vermont Castings stove called a Resolute.  It was a great stove that we used for the next 30 or so years until we gave it to my daughter for use in her house and we bought a new Vermont Castings Resolute.  We used that stove for 8 years up to now and we'd still be using it but for health reasons having  to do with my wife Sandi we had to discontinue burning wood.

So our wood-burning days have come to a close with the sale of our last wood stove. September 2022 marks the end of 45 years of wood burning.  We plan to install a gas fire place where the wood stove used to be. The upside to this is healthier air in the house, it's cleaner and no more hassles trying to work up a supply of wood every year considering I'm pushing 80.  The down side is the cost of burning propane. 

But I have to admit. I'm going to miss having a nice wood fire on a snowy afternoon. 

Here are our stoves in the order we had them. 

From my story book

As I mentioned on a previous post I will occasionally be posting some of the stories I'm writing.  The entire collection of 52 stories will be published in December.  I'm now on number 37.  Here's number 35.

Story 35: What are my favorite movies?

 

I haven’t been to a movie in over two years (as of Aug. 2022).  The primary reason for this is because of the COVID pandemic.  A secondary reason is that with two exceptions there simply hasn’t been anything I’ve really wanted to see.   The exceptions are “Elvis” and the “Downton Abbey” movie.  But I’m not too bummed out because they’ll undoubtedly appear on Amazon Prime or Netflix at some point in the not too distant future.

 

But I digress.  The question is what are my favorite movies? That’s a tough one.  I did a fast Google search and found the IMBd top 10 movies of all time and I was surprised to discover that I too found many of them to be my favorite movies.  Maybe I’m not so far out of the mainstream after all!

 

So here they are,  in no particular order, my favorite movies that I find myself watching over and over again.

 

The Shawshank Redemption

The Godfather (Part I)

Pulp Fiction

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (or just about anything with Clint Eastwood in it)

Fargo

The Sting

Bullet

The Battle of the Bulge

Kelly’s Heroes (more Eastwood)

Goodfellas

The Great Escape

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Deliverance

Men in Black

Jaws

Gone With the Wind

Killer Angels

 

So there you have it. You (whoever you are) are probably wondering if I’ve finally gone over the edge but I’m betting men my age would generally agree with this list.  Women, not so much.  For example about the only movie on the list my wife really likes is Gone With the Wind.  For young people the list is even shorter or nonexistent.  My grand children for example (as of this writing August 2022  ages 13, 14, 15 & 18) wouldn’t know what any of them are.  However, my two grand sons (ages 13 and 14) do like Men in Black and one of them likes The Bridge on the River Kwai.  I doubt if my grand daughters have even seen any of them except maybe Men in Black.

 

Anyway, that’s my list.  What are your favorite movies of all time? 

 

Next up for Week 36: my favorite TV shows of all time.