The short walk to the end of our driveway made me gasp at the beauty of nature. A powerful wind filled the air with fallen leaves, creating a veritable weather condition: It was leafing! Bright orange pumpkins, some half-rotted by now but still intact and inherently joyful, dotted the lawns and doorsteps of my neighbors in every direction. Impossibly fluffy clouds skittered by in a sky so blue it looked fake, like the one in The Truman Show. I rated the day an A+.
Then I opened the paper and saw, on the front page above the fold, a photo of Al Franken, former "Saturday Night Live" jester who years later became a more respectable fool in the United States Senate. Suddenly he has joined the coterie of famous men accused of "sexual misconduct," a term so loosely applied it includes anyone who ever cast an appreciative glance at a member of the opposite sex, or even of the same sex. Instantly my mood soured.
It seems that years ago Al Franken stuck his tongue in some woman's mouth and she didn't want him to. I wonder, is there any woman alive who didn't suffer that indignity? When Steven Turkowitz did that to me in the 11th grade I bit his tongue and trust me, he was sorry. (There was blood.) I didn't "report" him to anyone, but he reported me to the whole school and for weeks after boys would ask if I would bite their tongue. (I always declined.)
Anyway, don't we humans have bigger fish to fry? Like certain death for all of us, with maybe cancer or crippling diseases on the way to it, and still no power for the citizens in fully half of Puerto Rico? Do we really need a Senate investigation into whether or not Al Franken was once a moron and possibly still is? I'm going out for a walk among the pumpkins and I suggest you do the same.
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