Midwest Memo
After Labor Day
by Alan Shultz

I spent the Labor Day weekend on the work end of a shovel and wheelbarrow. I'm happy to report that the labor felt surprisingly good. The weather was beautiful,my back cooperated and the project got done. Those factors combined went far to help with the positive feeling. Mostly, however, the labor felt good because my normal routine doesn't involve shovel and wheelbarrow. Variety, it turns out, is often a really good thing.

At this time of year Mother Nature's variety gets bothmy attention andmy admiration. How can peppers turn up in these glorious greens, reds and yellows and still be considered vegetables and not art work? The yellow of the sweet corn, the purple of the eggplant and the seemingly infinite variety of greens from peas to cucumbers, I ask you, what canvas can do these hues adequate justice? I know the calendar still says summer, there's no debate about that, but everything outside, the air, the light, the textures, it all feels like fall is gently making its presence known.

I used to think of fall as simply a necessary transition between summer and winter. I didn't give it its rightful status on its own merit. I now appreciate fall more for the message and lessons that can be found in harvest time, for the clarity of crisp mornings and the contrast of warm days and cool evenings.

And, as I've mused over before, there's my Aunt Virginia's apple crisp to anticipate.

* * *

On Sunday my wife and I attended the wedding of some business clients. It was a 6 p.m. affair and we left home a tad too early. That early departure time proved to be fortuitous when we got near the public garden where the wedding was located.

It happened that on Sunday the garden facility was sharing its parking lot with a music festival further down the road. School buses and lines of autos merged from two lanes to one and inched along slowly. It took us an unplanned 40 minutes to exit the road and get the car parked.

Of course, we were not the only folks delayed by this traffic jam. Most of the guests and some of the wedding party were out there on the road fighting traffic long after the anticipated start time. The 6 p.m. wedding became a 7 p.m. affair with dinner served sometime after 10:30 p.m.

I'm sure there was plenty of behind the scenes drama, untold numbers of stressed cell phone calls and all kinds of adjustments between caterers and clergy and keepers of the garden's midnight closing time. What impressed me was that some point there was a collective surrender to the situation. The traffic snarl was bigger than any good intentions, planning and anticipating. And the wedding simply went on from

that reality. The daylight was

dimmer than planned for the photos, the food took some reheating, the schedule took some rearranging, but on it all went, different than planned but embraced by all who came whether to serve or to celebrate.

* * *

Do you have a favorite hymn?

I ask this because over the span of a week or so I heard several references to favorite hymns.

At the 10-yearmemorial service for Princess Diana they sang her favorite hymn, "I vow to thee my country." Later that week a radio program narrator discussing the life of Mahatma Ghandi cited a familiar hymn as being Ghandi's favorite. And a few months back, at the funeral service of a longtime friend, the congregation sang her favorite hymn.

I love hymns, I love hymn singing - the older and the more familiar, the better. But I've never stopped to pick a favorite.

We know so much and so little about each other. I guess I like the idea of knowing a person's favorite hymn. Perhaps I should start with my own and build the list from there.

If you're inclined, give it some thought.