In Pearlspective

I can remember it like it was yesterday but yet it's somewhat of a blur. It started on October 11th, 2015. We were relaxing in an Oklahoma hotel room on a Sunday afternoon, and some of us were going to take a short nap before going to set up for our show that evening, but the phone rang before any of us could fall asleep. The call was from a friend in Minnesota who had gone to visit my grandparents that day. Grandma had been quite ill for a while, but we thought she was on the mend. Our friend, who had a background as a hospice nurse, could see otherwise. "How soon can you get here?", she asked my mom. "I know performing is your livelihood, and I feel sick telling you to cancel a show, but I'd feel worse if I didn't. The time it takes to do the concert might be all the time you'd have to say goodbye." So, we canceled our show and left the hotel as fast as we could pack. We got in the van and headed north. We stopped after a few hour...

A s exciting as it may be, this blog post is not the "It" that the title refers to. "It" is that glorious time when stores begin selling Christmas trees (which have already been advertised on TV for months), Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash deer begin crossing the road more frequently than chickens in jokes, and all of America begins either raving about or mocking Pumpkin Spice. You guessed "It": I'm talking about Fall! F all is a season of great enjoyment for people such as myself (of whom, I happen to be one). After the hecticness (that is too a word!) of summertime, we can pull our turtlenecks out of the closet, get back in touch with our inner hermit, and finally slow down to reflect on the memories we made during the past few months. Another thing that people such as myself may do around this time is write blog posts about all of the above. So as I reflect on the whirlwind some have called Summer, here are some observations that come...