All the lovely kigo, or haiku season words, will now come in to play. "Autumn deepens" is one of my favorites, as is "waters of autumn" which refers to the clearer waters after the turbulent silt-laden runoff of spring. Now is the time for "beginning of autumn" which is not quiite as sad, but presages the falling of leaves, and the end of summer flowers and fruits.
Tonight my grandson came over and read some of the game warden's adventures in Outdoor California. This is one of my favorite parts of the magazine--these adventures seem to have an old fashioned rectitude. The poachers know they have done wrong and quake when captured. They had just as well confess, since (for instance) the body of the mountain lion in the back of the car is still warm.
These tales contrast oddly with this morning's story in the New York Times about the Major from Louisiana who managed to take almost $10 million in bribes from military suppliers (using his wife and sister as bag ladies) before being arrested. Known from childhood as a deeply religious man and one of 17 children, he became entangled in this mess. What a culture! What profits there must be in supplying the military! What a stupid system. It almost reminds me of the people who fed raccoons on their deck, until there were so many dangerously snarling raccoons that they were unable to use their own backyard. Not that he is not to blame, but that there is enough loose money in this system that millions can be abstracted from it so heedlessly--before anyone's attention is attracted. Your tax dollars at work, corrupting your countrymen.
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