Ahhhhh, Fall

There are those who would argue with me, but fall doesn't start on the 22nd of September. As any school child can tell you, fall starts when school does. When they put on those unblemished new clothes and shoes and pick up the backpacks full of fragrant freshly-sharpened pencils and unblotched paper and wait at the curb for the school bus to rumble down the street--that's the end of summer, and by extension the beginning of fall. Mine are so impossibly advanced in school that they wear any old thing for opening day, the pencils are all automatic, and even the youngest now drives herself. (She drives that stealth van, bless her heart!) But it's fall, nonetheless.

Oh how I love it. The oppressive humidity of summer is slinking away, ashamed of itself, and while the days may still be warm the nights are chilly enough that I need to snuggle down under my blankets and grab a cat for its radiant heat. I need a sweater in the mornings and evenings, and longer sleeves in the library. It isn't yet actually COLD, but it's thinking of getting crispy out there. In another month all the leaves will be ablaze in their autumn glory of yellow, orange, and red, and start covering the ground. I feel compelled to scuffle my feet when I walk through fallen leaves, just for the the pleasure of hearing them rustle. And what is half so satisfying as a big, golden harvest moon?

There is no more brilliant blue than the blue of the sky on clear fall days, and no brighter white than the heaps of puffy white clouds. I have a tendency in fall to just sit there and soak up joy from that blue sky. The oak trees are dropping their acorns, and the buckeye trees their comical bullseye nuts, and the squirrels are running around having a banquet in fast-forward. They are such crazy little acrobats, and they're out in force now, purposefully gathering for winter. I learned by accident a few years ago that if you leave a paper tablecloth out on a picnic table, squirrels will drag pieces of it backwards up a tree to make a nice soft nest out of it. What thrifty little creatures. What hairy little clowns.

And the food! I love fall food. I'm stocking up on ingredients for beef stew, chili, apple crisp and apple dumplings, pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie. Oooooh, pumpkin pie. All those delightful spices in one place. Which makes me think of Halloween, and Beggar's Night. Mine are too old for begging, but our neighborhood comes alive on Beggar's Night. Adults sit outside in lawn chairs, and exclaim over how big every one has grown this year, and how beautiful the princesses are, and haven't you been here already this evening? The adults take off visiting too, just because we're all outside and we can. No matter how cold and disgusting the weather was earlier in the week, even earlier in the day, Beggar's Night is nearly always clear and a little bit warm so we can enjoy ourselves as a community.

And last but not least, there's the football. High school football is lots of fun (even if we do have a sad tendency to lose) and full of nostalgic feelings. Homecoming dances are when we see our little princesses of Halloweens past shed their jeans and tee shirts for a night and become the grown-up princesses which, deep down inside, they have become. And college football! Since we don't have a professional team here, the town really turns out for college football, and the fans can get pretty rabid. I love every minute of it, even when we lose, which isn't all that often. But the very best part of football is of course the marching band! When I hear the percussion start and the band makes that soul-stirring ramp entrance into the stadium I get teary without fail. Script Ohio, Hang On Sloopy, Carmen Ohio--I'm a sucker every time. I quite possibly cheer harder for the sousaphone player dotting the "i" then I do for any of the touchdowns. Don't tell Coach Tressel.

Even though they're turning faster and faster these days, I've always loved the change of seasons. I don't think I'd be happy living any place where the temperatures barely changed. I'm well aware that I'm in the autumn of my own life, and I'm happy with that too. I wouldn't want my foolish youth back, not for any amount of money. And when those trees start to display their glorious foliage every year, I find myself spontaneously praising God that He made even the year's decline a beautiful thing, and that I got to see another one. Of course, I always thank Him for the wonder of snow too, and the miracle of all the gorgeous new life in spring (especially the baby squirrels, who are even crazier, if possible, than their parents), but there's something unusually uplifting about autumn. It makes my heart glad, every time.

Love, Spud.