WHAT A FALL!

This fall, between September and November I have attended three weddings and one formal ball. In all four occasions I ate well and strained to hear, the music so loud and pounding I wonder how anyone can have a decent conversation?

I used to be very good at cocktail hours, which used to run an hour. Now I need a seat to rest my plate and drink down, as I constantly shift my eyes from the person I’m talking to, to my tie, where I fear spilling something on it. Of course they serve things like clam sauce with spaghetti: that always flings itself outside your mouth and whips the sauce straight to the tie.

I noticed that people, especially young people are dressing down for weddings. I saw one young man wearing a white shirt and no jacket or tie, and a middle-aged fellow wearing a ordinary shirt I wouldn’t wear to a party!

The other day, my nephew the Macaroni Man, noticed that I carry a handkerchief, and asked me about it! I have been carrying a handkerchief all my life, and never thought anything about it, but today’s generation is telling me it is old-fashioned!

I recall growing up in Brooklyn: everyone dressed up on Sunday in their what else: their Sunday best! If you went to visit someone, on went you suit and tie and a piece of cake in your hand as you knocked on a door announced or unannounced.

Holidays such as Christmas and Easter required the suit too, and you better be going to church (unless you were my father) to round out the formalities.

Air flight, train travel and church meant dressing up, today flip-flops for all occasions. It is sad in a way and a welcome relief in another way that we have wrestled with so much formality.  There was dress down Fridays introduced in the late 90’s and even the work place is losing its classy edge.

I think that we are as a universal society losing our edge, as we quickly replace person-to-person eye contact with I-phone to I-pad or computer communication of the social networks. The art of script is already on the way out and soon no one will be able to write in long hand, or spell correctly as we have resulted to such things as LOL or BRB (Laugh Out Loud or Be Right Back)!

I wonder where the writers of tomorrow will come from? Will we have any poetic verse or fluid thought put down on paper or even on a computer generated document? Will the art of writing a novel be gone forever? How will the short stories go, the way of long hand script?

Yes, it’s been a hell of a Fall!