Brian Gongol
In a way, I really can't stand this time of year. It's not the return to school -- I'm well past that age. It's not the start of football season -- I look forward to tailgating and the general upsurge in the national mood.
What I really hate is the return of allergy season. Fall allergies come back, and I get waylaid. It's terrible. My immune system reacts in all the wrong ways to the pollen in the air, and I'm left miserable. And that's just a reminder that flu season is on the way, too.
This particular weekend is hard on another kind of immune system, too. We don't just spread things like coughs and colds from person to person. Ideas are also contagious. And just like viruses, ideas can break through our mental "immune systems" if we don't inocculate ourselves against the bad ones. We can immunize ourselves against the bad ones -- though it's also possible to infect ourselves with the wrong ones, as well.