If you couldn't tell, that last picture with the huge fish was a lie.  I left my thumbs in the picture and tried to make my changes obvious to nearly everyone who took a close look.  I was going to say something about it earlier, but I have been too busy with vacation, work and other distractions.  I couldn't just leave it alone either, lest some lurker take me serious and send my mug all over cyberspace as an example of an authentic fool in the flesh.

The real fish was quite nice.  Here's the honest picture:

The days are getting noticeably shorter.  I used to fancy myself as a man justly appreciative of all seasons.  I have noticed over the last three years or so that the warm weather is gone before I am ready to let go.  While I am in the truth-telling mood, I'll just accept that I have great respect and admiration for some seasons and mere toleration for others.  For example, spring is a wasted word in these parts that best describes a nasty breakup between two redoubtable and contrasting forces whose passion and poor memory assure their eventual reconciliation - and subsequent parting, et cetera.

I had a friend named Randy in elementary school.  We were about the same size, and we both had mothers that fixed us up in collared shirts with horizontal yellow, navy and maroon stripes.  I met him on the first day of first grade.  By the end of that unforgettable day of firsts, Randy and I were best friends.  Had I been privy then to the knowledge that comes from thirty-three years of stupid mistakes, there would have been red lights, bells and sirens blowing in my head.  Alas, seven years is a special number for suckers (just read about Jacob in the bible), and by the end of that first week, Randy and I were bitter enemies.  The first grader's weekend healed Friday's ill will, and Randy and I started afresh, beginning a miserable cycle that would last five years, separated only by summer's amnesia.  I now laugh at the irony of my eager anticipation of Junior High.  Randumb was off to Euclid Jr., and Farter was off to Powell.  Knowing the hellish experience of Junior High, I rest at ease knowing he got his, I got mine, and pretty-much every seventh-grade adolescent male to creep along the locker-lined labyrinth of budding breasts, changing voices and bearded ninth-graders got theirs too.

That was probably the low point. Nevertheless, there were plenty of nasty surprises on the long twisty road from purgatory.

Eventually, I discovered the risk-free, careless world of the third person.  I had two friends who happened to be together as boyfriend and girlfriend.  I liked them both, and I was held in constant wonder at their star-crossed dilemmas of love, misunderstanding, misfortune and inevitable parting.  As no wall can hold the living tides, no force could prevent the eventual reuniting of sour luck and biological trickery.  One waltzes, the other foxtrots, and all can see clearly but the blind dancers, hobbling in sore-footed bliss.  I found it enjoyable and entertaining because I was the third person.  One night after another unfortunate parting of ways, I saw a big opportunity I might-should-have taken.  The opportunity, had I taken it, would have been enjoyable no doubt, but it would have moved me into either the first or second person in a deadly triangle of three dubious individuals all fighting for either the first or second person.  I did the right thing and went home kicking myself, occasionally stopping to peck at the dirt and cluck.  Looking back, I see it as nothing other than the age-old cornucopia of trouble, and one I was lucky enough to pass on.  Probably better to be chicken than be blowing the empty goat's horn in despair - though in reality both are table fare.

And so it is with the seasons.  Good night.