the frost is on the pumpkin

pumpkin pie made with molasses


Some folks think all James Taylor songs sound alike. Could be, could be. Much of my musical taste was established as a teen while I did household ironing in the dining room listening to my eight-year-older brother Bennett's albums on the turntable behind me. While ironing my dad's handkerchiefs and t-shirts I listened to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sing "Suite Judy Blue Eyes." With the pillow cases and table cloths (including the very one in the pie photo, above) I was on to Leon Russell singing "A Song for You", and Dad's boxer shorts got smoothed out to the Beatles White album. To this day, the smell of steaming hot cotton under an iron evokes the warm chords of 1970s folk-rock. Too bad Dad had his dress shirts professionally laundered. Hey, I should have made a deal to launder, iron and starch his shirts, and with what he paid me I could have started my own musical library. I must have worn out my brother's albums, including multiples of Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, but Bennett never complained. And I never complained about ironing.

-

Whenever the first frost sparkles up the pumpkins, I think of one of my favorite JT tunes:

from James Taylor's "Walking Man" -

. . . Well, the leaves have come to turning
And the goose has gone to fly
And bridges are for burning
So don't you let that yearning
Pass you by

Walking man, walking man walks
Well, any other man stops and talks
But the walking man walks

Well the frost is on the pumpkin
And the hay is in the barn
An pappys come to rambling on
Stumbling around drunk
Down on the farm . . .

Have a listen: