Here in New England we sure do love our trees at this time each year. The landscape is truly spectacular this week, and with high winds blowing around on Wednesday, the air came alive with color as all the leaves on the ground and many of the leaves still clinging to the trees took to the sky in a dizzying swirl.

There were a few in town, however, who didn’t love the trees so much that day. Bob Emsley, for one, was lining up snacks and beverages by the easy chair in preparation for a leisurely afternoon watch Game 6 of the Yankees/Red Sox American League Championship Series when the wind blew down a large tree in his yard. The falling tree ripped all the wires from his house, depriving him of electricity and cable and his view of the game.

Bob wasn’t the only one to have bad luck this week. Dave Harris tried to be friendly to a neighbor’s dog, and it bit his arm. A day later a stone was kicked up by a passing vehicle, struck his windshield, and now there is a large crack in the glass. The crack has become less important now since he hit a deer two days later and did some real damage to his car. He has been taking his bad luck out by relaxing at Taunton Pond with his fishing rod, and the trout have been suffering for it.

They say it’s always darkest before the dawn, and we’ll keep that platitude in mind when we drive over to the Booth Library this week and try to find a place to park. Since the Public Works Department has taken over 16 of the regular parking slots for its trucks and paving machines, there are only 41 usable spaces –– not counting the Return Book Box lane where you are not supposed to linger. So people are driving round and round, backing out, turning around, or simply idling in front of the trash receptacle hoping a place opens up. Luckily, it’s not going to last much longer and it’s all for a good cause which is –– more parking! When the project is finished there will be 26 new places. When added to the 57 places that were available before Public Works arrived, we’ll have a grand total of 83. Now, parking at the Booth Library begins to look possible again.

Not always, but most of the time it is difficult to understand how and why the government spends its money. In my opinion, the greatest waste I have heard about recently is the $33 million of our money the government is spending to tell us that we will now have colored 20-dollar bills. One would have thought the free news releases about the new currency in all of the major papers would have been enough without a costly advertising blitz. I might mention, while at it, that we are writing to the guys in Washington asking for our share of the ads.

Saw an amusing sign in the back window of a car that was being pulled along behind one of the large recreation vehicles. It read, “I always go where I am towed to.”

Board of Finance member Jim Gaston must have taken a right turn instead of a left turn when entering Canaan House Tuesday night for a meeting and went by mistake to where the Board of Education was meeting. “There were so many people in there, I knew it couldn’t be us,” he remarked to fellow Board of Finance members.

Following a unanimous vote by the Board of Finance regarding a resolution appropriating $500,000 for the design and construction of a water main extension to provide clean drinking water to the Middle Gate School, First Selectman Herb Rosenthal quipped, “I wonder if there was ever a motion to provide dirty water.”

There are just two and a half more weeks until the local election, and beginning next week voters starved for the excitement of a local campaign will get a chance to sink their teeth into something substantive –– pizza. The town’s annual Pizza & Politics Forum is scheduled for Monday night at the Fireside Inn from 6 to 9 pm, and in addition to some great pizza I hear there will be some debating there as well. If you can’t make it Monday night, the candidates will gather again on Wednesday night at The Homesteads to try to win votes.

Frankly I haven’t been paying much attention to politics lately. I’m too busy preparing for the biggest night of the year for black cats –– Halloween. Come to think of it, sorting through all the political rhetoric isn’t all that different from celebrating Halloween. It’s a simple matter of distinguishing between the tricks and the treats.

That’s enough candy corn for this week, but I’ll be back, so be sure to…

Read me again.