Five A.M.

It is five a.m. and I have one eye open. I was reading a Dean Koonz book at two a.m. then went back to sleep. I am not sure it was the contents of the book I was reading before I went to sleep that made me restless or just one of 'those' nights we octogenarians keep like the 'watchers of the night'. This is a first for me as I know Dean Koonz is a fantastic writer with an imagination that soars far above most minds, but I find his 'monster' character a pure horror . . . where does this writer get such thoughts? Ugly, monstrous, frightening and beyond the pale, not my kind of reading. So I will leave Dean Koonz to his followers and select an adventure story, or a mild murder mystery or a beautiful love story that fills the mind with characters you can fall in love with.

If I want to read horror stories, all I have to do is pick up a newspaper, turn on the television and listen to a news broadcast and see and hear about man's inhumanity to man. What I am finding out, as I muse this morning, is that when we fill our minds with garbage, the old adage of 'garbage in ----garbage out' comes to mind and we need to turn our lives around and look for some uplifting stories to a healthier and happier mindset. So before I get on my lecture tour this morning, I am going to go and put on the coffee pot, fix myself some breakfast and turn on Channel 25 where the old cowboys are riding the range and saving the damsels in distress . . . it's Saturday and Fall is here as the house is cold. I dread putting the furnace on and the higher heating bills but it is that time of year. Have you noticed the nursery section of your stores where the colorful mums are showing? How beautiful they are this year and what a variety of colors, some a mixture of red and yellow, and some a cranberry red, while the lavenders and whites are gorgeous.

So, stop by a nursery and pick out a beautiful mum to grace your table before you plant it in the ground to enjoy for years to come. Buy some Halloween candy to have on hand but remember not to open the packages until Halloween. Some years those milky ways and tiny chocolate bars are long gone before the trick and treaters can knock on my door. Make today special, just like you.