THE CLARiON CALL

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It is that time of the year when multiple forces beckon us to their clarion calls. The calls are many and persistent and only last over a period of September through December.

The callers? The callers are non-other than Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years along with every four years of political suffering. (I think the word ‘suffrage’ comes from ‘suffering’).

Oh it starts easy enough, you see certain clues, and the last of your sunburn dissipates and you’ve shaken out all the sand from between your toes and underwear, as summer is put away, under the watchful eyes of Madison Avenue. Yes, those buggers who bring you back-to-back commercials with 5-minute intervals of programming.

It seems the big shopping stores like Walgreens etc., start piling the Christmas decorations and cards on display, but being multi-tasked and annoying at both, will bring you Halloween. First, you see a scary mask and crepe paper in orange and black, with corn candy and cut out ghosts, making you remember long lost relatives from your past.

But this is the time of the beginning of the Presidential debates and the messages they put on the air. After they announce what they promise they will do, what terrible things their opponents have done and include their half-truths, misleading arguments and if you are really watching closely their lies, they stamp it with their voice-over: “I’m the lying SOB and I approve this message!” Really! Now how will you get out of it???

As Halloween becomes a short term memory, Thanksgiving takes its place. The fanning turkey that you open into a three-dimensional wall or table top decoration. This brings out all the fussy housewives who now need to set their dinner table on Thanksgiving Day with matching dishes, napkin holders made of some ceramic (all of a sudden we are getting fussy here) that they will put away until next year, and of course replacing the jelly glasses with Waterford Crystal.

Then as you slice the leftovers for the following day, you hear the tingle of bells, the coming of Santa, with religious music as they force lyrics to these songs to sell you. Accompany this with: “I’m the lying SOB and I approve this message!”

Cars are sold on TV with big red bows wrapped around them as the husband surprises his wife with a new car in the driveway. This originality has been going on since Henry Ford. In fact, Henry put his Ford in the driveway on Christmas Eve in a red bow, the next morning he gave Mrs. Ford a small box holding a crank wrapped in Christmas paper. See opened the box and instinctively ran out to the driveway and said: “What the Hell is that?” It was a first after all.

But is won’t be just the Presidential candidates that will put up their messages, so will every two-bit politician who is running for office, or from the office of the DA, who will put up the immortal words: “I’m the lying SOB and I approve this message!” These words are sometimes followed months later by: “I look forward to my day in court, where I will be completely exonerated!”

So to you my friends I wish you a happy holiday season, that once again begins after Labor Day, and laboriously contends for your attention until you pass out broke, fat and drowsy on your couch from watching football all day on New Year’s Day, and the thing they call a hangover from the night before!