So, it’s suddenly September, and I’m not sure how these things happen. I think the month managed to sneak up on me because I missed the Jerry Lewis Telethon.


I always used to mark the passage of summer into autumn with Jerry’s deeply depressing, yet somehow uplifting twenty-two hour vigil. When I was quite young, my dad’s union would even volunteer at the phone banks for the local television station. I used to think my dad was going to Vegas with Jerry, a notion further confused by the rest of the family urging me to “watch closely – Dad might be on tv!”

In later years, we would watch as much of the telethon as possible, waking up at 2am to reassure ourselves that yes, it was indeed still going. We’d also head out to the fun fairs always staged by the local station, and load up on Jelly Belly® jelly beans, sold in the name of a good cause.

I’ve even marched in several Labor Day parades, both throwing candy to other little tykes, and playing in my high school band.

So this year, living in Chicago, and a touch disconnected from many I love, I did not have that family-steeped passage of summer into autumn.

That makes me a little sad.

Time to forge some new traditions, I say.