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Sunday, October 18th, 2026

Mountain Musings with Uncle Mott: The Sound of Silence

Aug 26, 2026 | Uncle Mott

I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to Labor Day weekend, despite all of its hustle and bustle, because it always ushers in the fall season and a return to normalcy and quietude on the mountain.

Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again, because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping and the vision that was planted in my brain remains within the sound of silence. (“The Sound of Silence” – Simon and Garfunkel – 1966)

According to a high-ranking Crestline Chamber of Commerce official…What a surprise, it’s none-other than Rhea-Frances Tetley, who mans (or should I say “womans”) the chamber office on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Anyhoo, there are lots of benefits of working for this newspaper, such as being able to sit at my desk, here in my lush executive suite at the stately Motley Manor, overlooking the vast expanse of the Inland Empire and beyond and, once again, the quietude of the fall season, with the summer tourists gone and crickets chirping in the cool autumn breeze…

Have you ever wondered why the word-crafters came up with a silent n for autumn? Why not just spell it like it sounds – autum. This reminds me of Wheel of Fortune, where they like you to say “n-uh,” so as not to confuse it with “m-uh.”

Next question, why does school have to start so dang early? It used to be that the new school year started right after Labor Day, which, this year, is on Sept. 7. However, according to the Rim of the World Unified School District calendar, the first day of the new school year for students was on Wednesday, Aug.12, while the first workday for teachers was Aug. 11.

There is a problem here and that is, with such a short summer vacation, the kids don’t have a chance to get a summertime job, nor is there adequate time for families to go camping or traveling around the country, like in the days of yore. Not to mention that it cuts down on the number of days that tourists can come up here and spend their hard-earned cash, which, with such a short summer, in turn hurts local businesses that cater to tourists (and usually, up here, August and early September are the hottest days of summer).

Well, soon the coolness of autumn will return to the cold and damp.

In restless dreams I walked alone, on narrow streets of cobblestone, ’neath the halo of a streetlamp, I turned my collar to the cold and damp when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light that split the night and touched the sound of silence.

 

Keep it flyin’,

Uncle Mott

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