Big Moon Rising, 8 to the Bar.

(Taken by Thing 1 from a moving car)

On the drive to school this morning the full moon hung in the brightening sky, skating along treetops and contrails as we headed north and west. The rising sun colored the soybean fields a strange russet and deepened the gold of the senescent leaves still clinging to the trees. Ponds steamed while the local golf course and suburban lawns twinkled with frost.

Fall has arrived in North Carolina.

Oh, sure, there are still flowers blooming, and the tall pines are still green, but a cold snap has chilled the air, carrying the scent of earth turned by the combines bringing the last of the crops, woodsmoke from backyards and chimneys, and the last of the season's lawnmowing.

Break out the sweaters and fleece, turn on the football game, settle into dark at 6 p.m., because it's fall, glorious fall!

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On the radio this morning: WSHA, a jazz station out of Shaw University in Raleigh. We stopped at that point on the dial because Thing 1 loves him some jazz; has since he was a wee thing. At times I wonder which old-school musician has reincarnated him (or her) self in that skinny drink of water that is Thing 1? He can't get enough of it.

Mostly.

His love stops at the atonal ramblings of live modern jazz; that brand that believes that a consistent shuffling beat from a brushed drum allows any kind of musical vicissitude to be expressed. Thing 1 likes the melody, the tune, the riff, the humor of jazz, not the seemingly self-indulgent bleatings of an overly inventive soloist.

I'd have to agree with him in this preference.

Being as how he's a trombonist, I believe that one day he'll find himself smack dab in the middle of a jazz band, baring his own melodic soul, engaging in the moment with a group of like-minded compatriots.

I sure hope so.

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Thing 2, on the other hand, is all about the BEAT, baby. Give him a dance tune or a hip-hop beat and he canNOT stop himself from dancing. I don't think he even knows he's doing it. Them feets start a-goin' and the torso starts a-shakin' and he's a gone Daddy-o by bar 3.

Years ago, when Thing 1 was a baby, I had a dream that the husband and I were at a Celtic "thing" watching a long-haired tall bearded redhead in a kilt dance with a wild power, grinning like a madman as he sweat and stomped. At the time I thought that glorious being was Thing 1.

Now I'm pretty sure that man will be Thing 2.

I can't wait to see if I'm right.