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First of all, three cheers for the TPW’S who made their way to Melissa’s race in Banff and went the distance!  From their photos, it looks like they had a wonderful time in such a beautiful part of our country.

We who hadn’t joined them, walked our usual route in Mount Pleasant cemetery on Saturday morning, enjoying the fall colours and crisp air but the warm sun of a beautiful blue sky day.  It’s so peaceful and quiet in the cemetery (I guess that’s not surprising given it’s a cemetery) that I contemplated once again the many pleasures of walking.

According to the NYTimes daily newsletter that I receive, the artist Jenny Odell has written a book called: “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy” and says “To do nothing is to hold yourself still so that you can perceive what is actually there.”  For me, that is the greatest pleasure of walking.  Of course I hear about all the health and social benefits from walking but something not so often referenced is how the pace of it allows me to “see” the environment around me.  To clear my mind and just observe, absorb and reflect upon my surroundings.  I am so busy trying to stay connected, responding and reacting to events reported in the news, that it is such a pleasure to slow down and just walk companionably with others.  The familiarity of walking lets me fire up all my senses so I can watch and listen to where I find myself, in the time I have left.

It felt a little bit like fall today and that made me think of Thanksgiving.  It will be over when I write again so I thought I’d write a little note of thanks to TPW for all you’ve added to my life.

Thanks for being role models – showing me how to be kind, how to be courageous, how to live with difficulties, how to recover from hardship.

Thanks for being mind-openers – I always expect that everyone I know thinks like me.  It’s so exciting when someone I respect has a different opinion and I have to stretch my mind to fit that in.

Thanks for being travel advisors and travel companions – we’ve been some fun places together.  And when I’m planning a trip, there’s always at least one person who’s been there and has good advice for me.

Thanks for parties – pool and tea and otherwise.

Thanks for companionship throughout these years of covid – you were there by phone and zoom through the darkest times.

Thanks for medical advice, experience and referrals – it’s helped me make good decisions.

Thanks for listening patiently when I drone on about my grandkids or tell you for the 500^th time that my knee hurts.

And of course, thank you for being friends!  (Hear theme song from Golden Girls in the background.)

That is always how I think of September regardless of how long I have been out of school.  Mind you, Saturday was still full-on summer weather but there have been hints of cool since. I love the fall but it is a bittersweet kind of love knowing what comes next.

But enough of that – there is lots to look forward to, including an upcoming trip to Calgary/Banff for the Melissa race that a group of us are doing. Huge thanks to our wonderful organizers, B and R,  who have thought of everything, including pre-testing the 10K hill (conclusion – we can all do it, no probs!).

I confess I haven’t trained all that hard this summer but that is okay. We all have to judge our own energy level at any given time and remember,  just getting out is a win.  As we have all read in many studies, the combination of exercise and congenial company is what helps keep us healthy both physically and mentally.

Enjoy the long weekend and keep walking your own distance!

“Oh, what a beautiful day                                                                                                              I’ve got a beautiful feelin’                                                                                         Everything’s goin’ my way”                                                                                                (Rodgers & Hammerstein)

Well, except for the “everything’s goin’ my way” part (as those of you who have heard my latest housing misadventure know), we had the most beautiful morning’s walk on the Toronto Islands on Saturday.  The beginning of the day was a tad cool with that autumn’s coming nip in the air but it was sunny with an absolutely clear blue sky; a perfect day in every way.  We met at 8 am at the Ward’s Island ferry and joined the small group of people taking the first crossing.  It had been a couple of years since we walked on the islands and it’s so easy to forget how wonderfully special they are.  The green lushness of the landscape, surrounded by the glittering blue lake, and the peaceful quiet of the roadway we followed as we walked to Hanlan’s Point and back, taking the boardwalk along the breezy waterfront on our return.  And of course afterwards, we had to rest our weary bones at the Island Cafe where we ate and drank sitting in the shade on a most beautiful day.  How lucky we are!

Photos are on the  TPW chat on Whatsapp..

 

I intended to write about the birthday hat.  I started by attempting to verify my assumption that the birthday song had been written by Ira Gershwin.  Wrong!  And then I discovered that until 2015, there was a copyright on the song and the cost to sing it was $US700!

Reading more deeply I learned:

• Patty Hill, a kindergarten principal from Kentucky, and her sister created the music and lyrics for “Good Morning to All” as a song that young children would find easy to sing. Their combination of melody and lyrics in “Happy Birthday to You” first appeared in print in 1912.
• Warner/Chappell collected about US$5,000 per day (US$2 million per year) in royalties for every use in film, television, radio, and anywhere open to the public, and for any group where a substantial number of those in attendance were not family or friends of the performer.
• On September 22, 2015, a federal judge ruled that the Warner/Chappell copyright claim over the lyrics was invalid. The 1935 copyright held by Warner/Chappell applied only to a specific piano arrangement of the song, not the lyrics or melody and that because there are no other claimants to the copyright, and the copyright to the melody long ago expired, the song was de facto in the public domain.
• Famous performances include:
  • Marilyn Munroe singing to John Kennedy
  • On August 5, 2013, the first anniversary of its landing on Mars, the Curiosity Rover celebrated its “birthday” when it sang Happy Birthday on the Martian surface.
  • Stephen Colbert attempted to sing the song in honor of the 90th anniversary of the song’s 1924 publication, but was prevented due to the copyright issues. Colbert instead premiered his new “royalty-free” birthday song – which turned out to be a parody of the US national anthem and ends with the stanza “Warner Music can’t sue me, and the home of the brave.”