Today, at 8:44 AM Eastern Daylight Savings Time, the plane of Earth’s equator passed through the center of the Sun. That’s the sidereal definition of an equinox. As the days are growing shorter, it was the autumnal equinox. We are now in the season of autumn.

     (Yes, yes, our friends in the Southern Hemisphere regarded it as the vernal equinox, as their days are growing longer. But permit me the perspective of a Northern Hemispherean.)

     Autumn saddens many. They look at the declining temperatures, the trees beginning to shed their leaves, the increasingly frequent showers, and lament summer’s end and the passage of time. But time’s going to do that no matter how we feel about it. And in doing so, it takes many of the things we love with it.

     Here’s one such: a song that was originally written for Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds production. This performance was by the Moody Blues, with Justin Hayward on lead vocal.

     And here, of course, is the quintessential “summer’s ending” song, by Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde:

     Enjoy your autumn, Gentle Reader.