Today, we celebrate the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.

As a woman and elected public official, I hold this right and my office in high regard.  As United State citizens,  women have this great privilege to vote because other women in the past century took it upon themselves to make sure that the voices of women everywhere had the right to cast a ballot. The 19th Amendment gives women their real voice.

Since all citizens are guaranteed, by the First Amendment, the right to free speech, this amendment gave women the right to speak their minds at the polls.

If you know a female who is not registered to vote, help her get registered.  If you are a woman and you vote, bravo!  Keep voting. If you know an elected female official, thank her for taking the risk to run for office and fight hard for the voices of all women across this country.

What’s on my mind?  Well, my 21 1/2 year old cat, Sherlock Holmes, died today.  What a great cat he was, greeting me at the door each day.  Never once did he gossip about me or talk behind my back or ignore me. His purring against my face relieved all of the day’s stresses.  His morning songs were the best as he waited for breakfast.

What a fighter he has been these last months as he could not see due to cataracts and frail legs that wobbled so that he could not get into his litter box.  Because he was no longer grooming himself, I spend each day caressing his beautiful fur with a brush hoping that would give him some sense of dignity. Since he was only able to do his business wherever he stood, he needed someone to care for his coat so he could have a sense of the regal cat he has always been.  He did live a great life so I am okay with it all because he was blind and moved so slow.  He had numerous health issues as the elderly always do, so although I grieve his  loss, I know it is better for him now.  Goodbye, old man, you were dearly loved.

It is time for school to start.  How do I know this?  No, it is not the crazy moms shopping with their bored adolescents who languish while their dutiful parent buys schools supplies at Walmart or the packed parking lot at Millcreek Mall.  Rather, it is the first aroma of grapes in the vineyards.

Last evening when I was walking the dog past the vineyard at the entrance to the high school, I smelled that delicious smell.  Just a few yards from the entrance to the vineyard I saw the telltale signs of cross country runners.  Every year, they steal a fist of grapes hoping to get that sweet aroma into their mouths.  However, what they discover is that the grapes are not nearly ripe and they toss the offending sour grapes they still have in hand along the road.  When school actually starts and the grapes start to ripen, there is not a clear stepping space on the front portico that serves as the gym entrance to the high school.  I have always wondered why the kids spit out the purple hulls of the Concord grape on the concrete pad that leads into the school, because I love the whole grape.

School days were always hard in the fall because that sweet, intoxicating aroma filled the classrooms in the early fall afternoons, beckoning each one to come out and play amongst the trellises. How could a teacher get a good lesson taught with such an invitation pulling not only the child,but the teacher as well?  This is such a special place because I do not have to go to Nappa Valley to enjoy the grape harvest.  I just open the window or step out the door.

The warm days and crisp, football and soccer evenings make for a great fall harvest and start to every school year as the Grape Pickers don their maroon and gold colors to represent the school. Go Pickers!

It is also a time for celebration with the Community Fair and the Wine Festival, but those will be future blog posts.