Cup O’ Joe: Faster every year

It’s beginning to look a lot like the holiday season in southern Aroostook County. The push seems to come earlier and earlier each year. As soon as Halloween passed, many stores jumped straight into the Christmas season, putting out their trees, lights, ornaments and other decorations.
    In fact, while searching for one last bag of Halloween candy to have, just in case it was needed, Houlton’s Walmart had already put out Christmas candy packaging. Somehow, handing out Three Musketeer bars with Christmas bulbs on them for Halloween seems a bit odd to me.
You almost have to feel sorry for Thanksgiving, since it is rapidly becoming the looked over holiday. Think about it. How many homes decorate for Thanksgiving? You don’t see very many window stickies of turkeys, cornucopias and such.
Stores have yet to find a way to commercialize Thanksgiving, and that is a good thing. Sure there is the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, but most of the floats in that are centered on Christmas.
Once Halloween passes, the urge to start playing holiday music begins. In fact, it has already happened in many stores and even in the office of the Houlton Pioneer Times. That is one of the beauties of the Internet. One no longer has to wait for radio stations to play holiday tunes. They are readily available 365 days of the year.
It almost lessens the effect, in my opinion. Today, every holiday show imaginable is available either on DVD or through websites like “Youtube” to be watched whenever a child wants to. Explaining it wasn’t always this way to my children results in a glazed over look from them, which I am sure is reminiscent of the looks I gave my parents.
It is the “Back in my day …” conversation that goes on with every generation. For me, it was hearing my parents tell of a time with no television. Now I am telling my children of a time when there was no Internet or “On Demand” movies to watch off a satellite.
I can fondly remember talking with friends at school as we anxiously awaited the showing of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” or “Frosty the Snowman” to be aired on television. It was the highlight of the week and if you missed it, you were bumming.
Jury duty
Back in April, I wrote about jury duty being one’s civic duty and how interesting it would be to get called for it. I wrote about what a grand design the judicial system was and what a privilege it is to be called. In the future I will be more careful with what I wish for. As fate would have it, I was indeed called for jury duty, requiring two trips to Caribou Oct. 1 and Nov. 5.
Jury selection can be an intimidating process for many. Very few people I know are actually excited by the prospect of missing time from their job to earn a whopping $10 a day and 15 cents in mileage. I found the whole process fascinating, albeit I knew my chances of getting selected for a jury were slim.
Reporters typically have knowledge of criminal cases or accidents. It’s our job to report on these matters. Of the five juries being selected, I either had knowledge of the case from writing about them in the paper, or knew too many of the witnesses involved to be chosen.
But that still did not excuse me from being placed in the jury pool. So there I sat for two full days, knowing full well that I would never be chosen. It did, however, provide a bit of insight into the judicial process. One doesn’t realize how much time and consideration is given when selecting jurors for a trial. That is something we can all be thankful for.
Joseph Cyr is a staff writer for the Houlton Pioneer Times. He can be reached at pioneertimes@nepublish.com or 532-2281.