Falling in Autumn

Sunday night I borrowed a kilt from the village president of the next town over from where I live. As I, for lack of a better word, am a journalist, I hope this doesn't violate some code of conduct. But is it really wrong for a writer to wear another man's clothes? That's what we writers do metaphorically anyway, right - and why you have to be careful of us. You never can tell if you will turn up in a story.

Beisdes, the kilt is for a trip to New Orleans where I will be attending a costume party, and for a guy who doesn't like to play dress up I've been doing a bit of it lately.It's bee than kind of year.

Speaking of, Saturday I saw stragglers from yet another early Halloween party for adults at a place called the R Bar, which would be a good name for a pirate hangout.

That some were dressed at if they were in the cast of Grease only confirmed my feeling that it is one of the scariest movies ever made - 30 year olds in high school, singing. I shudder.

This infatuation we've developed for Halloween - it's probably just another excuse for a party, to let loose from the stressed out lives we have, to have an alter ego for a night aside from the masks we have in our jobs and the screen names we set up on the Internet. And poor beer companies need all the help they can to sell suds to a temperate nation.

On the other hand Halloween is tied to the change of seasons, to the dying of the light. We don't really deal well with death, and in our culture it's drummed into us that we should all be ageless. A costume might fool the grim reaper for a night, but we already have ghosts of our own to deal with. The leaves fall, the frost comes. Global warming aside, there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

Loss seems magnified this time of year. It is for me at least. I have an aunt dealing with a heart transplant. I talked to a friend tonight who lost a cousin in a car accident. Another friend's mom died. I might have come close to losing my life from pulmonary embolisms.

I have some friends who are having to change career paths in their 50s, with kids in school still. I probably lost as a friend someone I cared for a great deal because of issues going on in his life he won't deal with. To say anymore would betray what might be left of that friendship.

And Saturday night I took a my best friend at work out for the last time as my best friend from work. That's to say he has a new job - and that I work at a place where even taking a job in Gary, Indiana is a step up (sorry, easy joke). I have been at this place for 10 years now, and did a body count: I'm up to more than 70 people who've come and gone from the newsroom. It's like working at a minor league baseball team, or being on ER too long.

So we headed out to meet up with some friends he made from a story that touched him - and with some cops out for a pub crawl.

First we wound up at the home of a former police chief, where his old pals were sitting on the deck with a few of them playing guitars and singing songs. We were offered desserts, and who can turn down pumpkin mousse or pretzel balls or klotchkis?

Not this former 240-pounder and not my big lug buddy. Actually he got all effusive about the cream puffs and the pretzel balls, the latter of which he thinks he would like to try making, including versions infused with cheese.

Yeah, my 6' 3' 260 pound pal likes to bake. That's part of why I love him. Food is the way to my heart.

He also likes Yorkies and wound up talking to the hostess about her dogs - which was a side I had not really seen. There's just something intrinsically funny about a big boy with Elvis sideburns chatting about small dogs.

Yeah, my buddy knows he has a dork side. He's a photographer. They all do.

But having Scott as a friend is like having a St. Bernard, not a lap dog, show up to work with you. And I mean that as a compliment.

Why we were there was Scott had befriended the top cop's son working on a story about the son. That's one of the things about being in journalism - sure you're supposed to remain outside and objective, but you're also human and can't help being drawn to people. In this case, Scott came close to being having a second set of parents.

In Scott's assignment that led to this, Jake, the subject that became his friend used to be a caretaker for an old man who lived all by himself until the state decided he needed to be in a home. The old man, Doc, essentially lived most of his life alone, with few friends and no family. He was no day at the beach, or even a day along the shores of the Fox River.

Me being single and maybe past the eligible bachelor stage, stories about such people scare the crap out of me. I've had too much me-time in my life already, and thoughts of being alone in my so-called golden years have no appeal.

But Jake wound up bonding with Doc, and Scott was there documenting this for months, this unlikely love story, but a story that isn't mine to tell, at least not tonight, beyond what I have already said - and that it reminded me of Tuesday With Maurie without the syrup, a story about how bonds can form between unlikely pairs, between flawed people who somehow connect - which is 99.99 percent of us, including it appears, Mother Theresa, who had big doubts of her own.

But there is no super glue for human bonds. Time and death see to that, of course, but so does they way we live our busy lives where lonely is an occupational hazard along just about any career path.

Like I said, I've felt a lot of loss lately, and I am going to miss my friend, if just for the weekly lunches at Buffalo Wild Wings (an unofficial sponsor of this blog).

I'm hoping that we keep in touch, thinking that will probably happen, and will make the effort, but you never know.

On that last boys' night out, when I got home I looked up and couldn't believe how the sky was so clear you could see most of the seasonal constellations and stars. I was not impressed, depressed or pressed of any sort by my own insignificance at that moment. But I did think, how sobering, all that empty space on such a beautiful night.