When legends are made...

I love it when I awake to a moving piece from an orchestral cinematic score. That was the case this morning. James Horner's Legends of the Fall original cinema score matches the 1994 movie stride for stride in its power and emotions. I woke up with one of its major themes striding through my subconscious like the wild horses that galloped over the ridge and into the pen at the Ludlow's wilderness ranch. I must admit, it's a nice way to wake up.

I am absolutely enamored with cinematic scores from the likes of Horner , Jerry Goldsmith, Alan Silvestri, Howard Shore and John Williams. The movies that contain their orchestral interpretations do more than just provide a musical background, more than simply accompany the visual with a complimenting sound. These masterpieces become the integral interwoven thread that drive our emotions to the wrenching, weeping, clenching, cheering eruption that would otherwise have been uncovered. The movies would be great without the original scores. They become entrenched in our memories, moving our very souls with them, however.

Now that's the way to greet the day, huh?

I started thinking, how appropriate to be humming a track from Legends of the Fall at this time of year. Especially this year. This is certainly the time for legends to be made.

In the wide world of sports, or at least in the United States, football has started. And, like it or not, it plays a tremendous role in our society. It is to the weekend what our jobs are to the week; only with more adult beverages, and body paint, and gambling, and television exposure, and...well maybe the two aren't that similar. Suffice it to say that we, as a whole, invest a lot of time and money in football. It's also the close to another season of America's Pastime. No, reality television isn't being taken off the air. I'm talking baseball. The playoffs are upon us and the World Series is fast approaching. This is the only time of year that some of those reality TV viewers actually tune into a baseball game.

As far as legends go, this is the time when college football provides us an addition to the traditions and folklore of campuses across the nation ; when an NFL unknown becomes a star and a star becomes a household name; when baseball delivers a memory-etching feat that becomes timeless. Names like Campbell, Walker, Grange, Baugh and Simpson still carry an inhuman mystique in barbershops, break rooms and bars in many a college town. Do Staubach, Bradshaw, Namath, Payton, Manning ring a bell? Not surprisingly, the best from the fields and arenas achieve the status that only the top echelon from the silver screen achieve. And who can forget the swings of Reggie Jackson and Kirk Gibson. The legends and their stories are classics that always amaze and mesmerize.

This year, though, provides an extra opportunity for the birth of legends. This comes in the realm of American politics. The critical juncture at which our nation seems to be currently lends itself to a leader or leaders of legendary status. It practically begs for it. Will it happen? Will someone step up to the plate and hit a game winner like Gibson's? Or, will the Legend of the Fall be a legend that occurs from a fall. That is still to be seen. It should provide for an intriguing autumn, though.

I'd say this morning was an awakening of legendary proportions.