Margin Notes: Autumn, Time, Songs

The falling leaves obscured all but the most traveled trail through Lambton Woods Park along the Humber River north of the Canadian Pacific bridge on 26-October-2009

TORONTO, ONTARIO - One of my favorite spots in my neighbourhood in the fall is a small forested area in Lambton Woods Park. Unlike most of the Tommy Thompson Trail, it is covered by a canopy of trees year-round, and as most of those trees are deciduous, it becomes a sea of leaves this time of year. The piles of leaves were about at their peak last Monday, creating a beautiful walk. The fall colours around Toronto are fading now, but at least for a few days, they were a wonderful invitation into Lambton Woods Park.

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It's more difficult for most people to see what fall colours are remaining now that Daylight Saving Time has ended in North America, and Standard Time has returned. I'm one of those people that believes Daylight Saving Time should be made year-round and end the twice-yearly transitions. The primary argument against this idea seems to be children walking to school in the dark, and to that I say start school later--aren't studies always saying that children should sleep in later anyway?

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Changing the time on my watch at the time shift is not that difficult, but as the band on my watch recently failed, coming up with a replacement proved more difficult than I thought. I ended up cobbling together a working band using parts from two previous watches that I had retained, plus some parts from the recently worn-out band. It cannot be stated that I have not learned from my grandparents' generation that lived through the Great Depression.

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Generational differences can turn up in interesting ways, though. When a musical reference came up about "Where Is The Love?" I presumed it was to the Black-Eyed Peas, who released their single in 2003. It turned out that the reference was actually to the 1972 single by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. Both songs reached #1 in their respective eras, and I had never made any connection between them before.