First Day of the Newfoundland Autumn

I was out for a run through Harlow Town Park this afternoon and “Crowd from up the Hill” by the Sharecroppers came on my iPod. For the indoctrinated, that’s a crowd of teachers from home who formed a rock band once upon a time and put out a few hair metal albums (including one single feat. Akon), although the three “Unplugged” discs are probably the only ones anyone has ever heard. Pity, that.

Thistle Avenue in Pasadena doesn’t quite cut it as a hill, and there’s no real reason why Home, Boys! should even be on my iPod in the first place (read: there’s every reason in the world why it should be there. I’ve got Natural too), but it was a moment where the strangeness of this place really hit me. This isn't Newfoundland. This wasn’t just a turn about Quidi Vidi Lake where the only navigating you have to do is keep the lake at your left hand (or your right, if you go the wrong way); this was a foreign world where I didn’t know the way, where I zigzagged and careened under arched bridges and through tangles of trees just to find a path that would take me a little bit farther and which avoided the road.

Summer’s over today, and it felt it, not just in the air and with the falling leaves, but in the general acceptance of change. In the uncertainty of what’s ahead, the excitement – and in the looking back at what’s already happened, and wondering where it’s gone.

And still, when that song came on, I was back home, even if it was just for 3 minutes and 42 seconds.

Today, of all days, this might have been more fitting, but we don’t get to pick our moments of epiphanic, nostalgic reflection:

There really is nothing like a Newfoundland autumn, especially in the Humber Valley, but there’s a lot of other things out there worth seeing and worth doing. Great Big Sea (what else?) came on next on shuffle, with a tune all about (again, what else?) making the most of your life while you’ve still got it in the palm of your hand:

“The hardest part of life is to live while you’re alive.” – That’s what this is really about, and of not missing out on the things that really matter when you have the chance. Also, I'm not bullshitting you on the order of these songs, which conveniently enough made a full-circle extended metaphor about life. That's just what happens sometimes.

We're heading out to an amateur production here in Harlow tonight, all about cricket.

 Not quite

I guess that’s about equivalent to seeing a play about hockey in Canada. Inevitably it’s going to be more stripped-down than what we’ve seen thus far but, if nothing else, it should be a laugh.

The Newfoundland autumn will be over when I get home, but God willing the crowd won’t be gone. Till then, I’m gonna keep my fake British accent and keep my eyes fixed on the horizon.

Except for every so often when the Sharecroppers come up on shuffle.

Cheers,

rb