Oh, “it’s a long, long while from May to December. But the days grow short when you reach September.”
Truer words were never spoken — or sung. I wish I had written those words but they come from playwright Maxwell Anderson for the Broadway production of “Knickerbocker Holiday” in 1938. The play didn’t last long but the song, appropriately known as “September Song,” has endured.
Check your calendar. We are nearing the final quarter of the year 2024 and the days do grow short when you reach September. The sun is setting earlier. We will have had roughly 13 hours and seven minutes of daylight on the first of this month and almost three minutes less at the end and going down every day thereafter for the rest of the year.
September is a meaningful month to me. My dad was born in September. A hard-working railroad man without much formal education, he was and is the wisest man I ever knew. You can’t teach common sense in school. To him, right was right, wrong was wrong and no amount of rationalization could change that fact. I know. I tried.
September is also when we lost our shining star. Zack Wansley, my oldest grandchild, collapsed and died in 2008 while on a training run in preparation for an upcoming marathon. He was 20. An unrepentant Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket in a family full of Georgia Bulldogs, Zack excelled at everything he did, athletically and academically. He was the epitome of the term scholar-athlete. And, suddenly, he was gone. His parents know the cause. I don’t. I don’t need to know. It doesn’t change anything.
Sept. 11, 2001, like Dec. 7, 1941, is a day that will forever live in infamy. While we may always remember where we were when terrorists attacked us, may we never forget what happened. Some 3,000 people died that day. A lot of people in this world don’t like us, and we need to accept that fact. Our bigger enemy is our apathy.
September is also when school used to start back. Usually the first day after Labor Day. When and why that all changed, I have no idea. The schoolteachers in my family were back in the classroom in late July and the kids in early August. I don’t know about you, but trying to get me to understand the difference between a hypotenuse and a hippopotamus in August would have been a steep challenge for the best of teachers.
September is when football gets into full swing. Or it used to. Now high schools around the state are starting their seasons in August. I remember in the dark ages when the college season began in mid-to-late September. I also remember wearing a coat and tie to Sanford Stadium while the Woman Who Was to Share My Name wore a corsage. It was the thing to do.
Sept. 22 marks the beginning of autumn. At 8:44 a.m. EDT, if you want to be precise about it. That’s when the leaves begin to change and an appropriate time to ask ourselves if we have changed, too.
When “September Song” talks about the days growing short when you reach September, it is not referring to the month of the year, it is talking about the September of our lives. Some of us are approaching it. Some of us are there. For some of us, September has passed and we are nearing or into our December. Wherever you are on that continuum, don’t take life for granted. It is too precious. And unpredictable.
I find myself fretting over things that occurred in the yesterdays of my life and anxious about what the tomorrows have in store. I have to stop and remind myself there are two things I can’t change — yesterday and tomorrow. What has happened, has happened. I can learn from it perhaps but I can’t go back and undo it. As for tomorrow, I have no guarantee I will be granted a tomorrow. That says to live within this day and live it the best I can.
“September Song” ends with these words: “Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few. September. November. And these few precious days I’ll spend with you. These precious days I’ll spend with you.” I can think of no better way to start this September or to end this dialogue than by saying thank you, dear reader, for allowing me the opportunity to share these precious days with you.
Dick Yarbrough is a longtime Georgia resident and former public relations executive. Reach him at dick@dickyarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139; or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb.