Today is the beginning of the month of November.  My immediate association is Armistice Day on November 11th.  It was always a dull grey day, as frequently with frigid temperatures. Usually rain, though seldom snow. Today’s weather is less mournful but nonetheless predominantly bleak. In prep school there was an hour “off”, perhaps marked by a brief assembly in chapel to memorialize the event.

Armistice Day, later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, at 5:45 am for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at 11:00 am—the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918—although, according to Thomas R. Gowenlock, an intelligence officer with the U.S. First Division, shelling from both sides continued for the rest of the day, ending only at nightfall. The armistice initially expired after a period of 36 days and had to be extended several times. A formal peace agreement was reached only when the Treaty of Versailles was signed the following year. Wikipedia

November is reminder too that the brilliance of autumn has passed; that darkness descends more quickly; that winter is coming. The Canada geese – precedent to their departure southward – have taken to the harvested corn fields where no doubt they scoop up remaining kernels from the violence of the combine/thrashing machine.

This morning, when making an early start to the grocery store, we saw a Gary and Joy, a couple whom we know, walking along the sidewalk. There were both outfitted for winter weather – specifically, he was wearing what looked to be a sizeable tuque and she a winter hat. As they approached, they appeared to be angled downward in a driving wind.

I was reminded once again of another impending alteration when later tricycling about the subterranean garage. A gentleman who parks next to me (and who, I am informed, was lately appointed Vice-President of his corporation) enquired where we expected to travel this winter.  I told him nowhere.  That we had forsaken the American vernacular – and, in honesty, that my limited mobility discourages the romance of most foreign adventures.  I explained, in light of his further enquiry, that it wasn’t merely a matter of coping with a sandy beach and a stick; namely, a boardwalk wasn’t the answer. We both agreed it was impossible to beat the view across the farmlands and upriver from one’s desk by the window.