Every August when I was a kid, the stores in our town rolled their wares out onto the sidewalks and declared a sale for the Dog Days of Summer.

Now that people are littering their lawns and porches with pumpkins, spiderwebs and skeletons, what do we call October — the (Black) Cat Days of Fall?

Many, many full moons ago, when I was still serving time in Monroe Elementary School, we read a famous poem by Carl Sandberg called “Fog”:

“The fog comes in

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over the harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.”

There was not a word about autumn in that piece, but it would fit. Some of those people who clutter up their homes with bats and ghosts and gargoyles add fog machines as well.

The thing about the Cat Days of Fall is that cats are notoriou

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