Once in a Blue Moon and Every Four Years

Thursday night as I traveled back to the farm from Katherine’s, the moon was near full and both bright and beautiful. I was somewhat surprised because it seemed as if we had only shortly before had a full moon, but time is passing so fast these days that I assumed it was a full thirty days since the last one. Even after a cloud passed in front of it, it shone through gorgeously luminous, and I allowed it to both light and lighten my trip home.

The next day I learned that Friday night was to be a blue moon—the writer explained that when we occasionally get two full moons in one month that is what a blue moon is. Someone else wrote that we would not have another until 2015. Friday night the rain clouds and the good gentle rain here at the farm kept me from seeing the orb again just as tonight’s rain is now doing, but it had been so beautiful that I am still seeing it in my mind. I feel unusually blessed that I had been allowed to enjoy it on Thursday night, because I needed that beauty.

We appreciate these rains, which while too late to help the corn crops, will help the later soybeans and will also help the ground be ready for next year. We are just sorry that others had to experience that terrible hurricane and flood damage for us to finally receive rain. I don’t know how people bear going home to flood destroyed homes—or out west to the fire destroyed homes. Certainly these brave ordinary people are heroes as they face starting over.

Gerald and I were at Katherine’s this evening when the television announcer was telling the people in nearby Carbondale to take shelter for a tornado. We were on the alert too until after 6 when things seemed to calm down, and as far as I know, no one had a tornado after all. But for the first time I ever remember, Carbondale fell victim to flash floods. Cars were flooded out and stalled, and the tow trucks were busy. We’ll find out in tomorrow morning’s newspaper how bad it was. Here although the rain continues, it is not harsh or in excess yet.

It is an unusual Labor Day weekend for us since we don’t have company. I thought Mike and Leslie might be coming up from Nashville, but then I found out that I had mis-remembered; it was Columbus Day weekend that they plan to be here. I think the Taylors are still coming down from central Illinois to their home here, but so far they have not arrived.

Gerry thought about coming if they did not have practice, but decided to stay home whether they did or didn’t. His clan was all at the football stadium today and saw Georgia win. Erin at University of North Texas and us Southern Illinois University fans were not so fortunate with our teams’ results. Marion High School played up at Mattoon last night (my brother’s town) and they not only won but Sam’s friend Josh, a sophomore, was put in for five minutes’ play again. Not being a football fan myself, I don’t really care who wins or who is playing whom, but hearing all the others’ football excitement heralds that fall is here. However, I am a kid fan, and I felt happiness just thinking about that great tall guy Josh playing the game he has anticipated since he was a little short guy pitching a football back and forth in Sam’s front yard.

I limited my television viewing of the Republican National Convention to evening hours throughout the week and plan to do the same with the Democratic Convention this week. I think I know how I will vote in November, and tell pollsters who torment me with phone calls who that is. However, I won’t be absolutely certain until nearer the election. Anything could happen between now and then. Who knew, for example, that a movie star would pull a stunt like one did Thursday night and be so vulgar and disrespectful to our President? I did wonder about the morality and patriotism of the folks who applauded him. (I often wonder that same thing about those supporting comics who mock the opposite party.)

I am grateful we have a good family man with either party’s candidate to set a good example for our youth. I love our present First Lady, but Mrs. Romney would succeed in that role. The emphasis this week on hard work bringing success was inspiring, and I am sure we will hear that emphasis this coming week also. I liked it that someone (maybe several people) pointed out that if we can keep our kids in school and if they will postpone sex and babies until they are properly ready, the statistics are in their favor for successful adult lives. I want good public schools for all children, and I am not satisfied with either party’s plan for achieving them.

I think whoever is elected will get credit when the economy turns around as economies always have in the past. I think the turn-around has started. I am not fearful that our nation will go down the drain as so many are predicting. But I know there are many hard problems that we must face, and I think we will do so just as those ordinary folks will manage somehow or other to survive and go on with their lives after all this summer’s natural disasters.