When August turns to September, the weather in Michigan does a sort of pivot. The days get cooler. I’ve left footprints in frost heavy enough to hold them at the beginning of September, although that was some years back and four hours north. We’d been swimming there earlier that week. The nights get cooler, too, giving rise to what we call good sleeping weather.
The light changes, too. I no longer hustle to the end of the hall in the morning to pull the blind, so the rays of the rising sun don’t blast the pastel hanging by the window. The sun shines in more obliquely now, so I’m less concerned about the art. The color of the sky darkens with the new month. It isn’t cobalt yet, but it is no longer summer’s light blue. It doesn’t matter that the calendar says fall begins some three weeks into the month, September and autumn begin together.
Before CoVid, the turn of the calendar also meant a court picnic. These picnics were a big deal. Each household was expected to bring two dishes to pass, plates, silverware, serving utensils, napkins, beverage, glasses, table, and chairs. The picnics had been happening since the houses were built, sometime in the 1960s. One original owner still lives here, and has dubbed himself the mayor of the court. There hasn’t been a picnic since CoVid.
But this year, Don and Barbara surprised us with an email that said they would be on the court at 6:00 p.m. the next day, with drinks and nibbles, and invited people to join them. At the appointed hour, Barbara even went house to house to make sure everyone got the message. Attendance was good. Some folks even brought things.
Notably, Ovidiu and Diana brought two cakes. Both were in celebration of Ovidiu and his brother’s recent win at the North American Flying Dutchman sailing championships. The Flying Dutchman is a fast, double-handed sailboat, and Ovidiu and his brother made Ovidiu’s boat go very fast indeed. Ovidiu has always been interested in sailing. He started sailing for Romania, his country of origin, when he was fifteen, traveling all over Europe to compete with the team. Ovidiu is now in possession of a handsome plaque, which bears columns of brass plates, on which are etched the names of the winners of each year’s Flying Dutchman championship. Ovidiu and Razvan’s names are on the 2022 plate. Ted Turner’s name, as Ovidiu pointed out, appears on one of the plates, too, from many years ago.
Beth brought a game, called Apples to Apples. Players select, from the noun cards in their hand, the card they feel best matches the judge’s adjective card. The judge decides which noun card wins. In other words, the games is almost entirely random and subjective. The winning card selected for reasonableness, for instance, was cactus. The game gives rise to hilarity and nutty discussions. “Zombies has to be the winner for moldy. Zombies are already dead. They must be moldy!” Or, “What do you mean, penguins aren’t flat?” Three generations of us played that game till the folks who’d brought the long tables came over to fold them up. Everyone who came to this impromptu gathering acknowledged it to be a success.
One morning after the get-together, I chatted with a neighbor getting ready for a trip. Kathy said she and Don were heading to Pittsburgh, where Dave is giving a speech. On “The Golden Age of Steel.” To the local chapter of the American Society for Metals. “He’s going from here to give that speech in Pittsburgh?” I asked. “These new guys don’t remember,” she answered. Dave, a metallurgist, is of an age to remember. Kathy said Dave gave this talk once already, to a Michigan audience. It went well and was well received.
“So I said, we put so much work into this talk, why don’t we find out if other places would like to hear it?” Kathy continued. And three places have answered that they do want to hear it: Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago. “All road trips!” I said, congratulating her. “You know me,” she smiled. “I’m all about road trips.” So, off she and Dave have gone.
September is a time for bustling and picking up the pace. For renewing connections with friends and neighbors. For getting back into the routines we may have abandoned for the summer. September is when school begins. (Michigan has a law saying that has to happen after Labor Day.) And, especially in a university town like Ann Arbor, September is when the students come back and a new year begins.
9 September 2022