On these beautiful autumn days one should wax poetic. We have had a few sunny days in a row, cool but sunny. Today is nearly a movie version of an autumn day for the hero and heroine. The problem is (wait for it) winter comes directly after autumn.
Now many of you probably like winter. There are possibly millions of people who like to abuse themselves and go out in winter and think it is great. Then there are the rest of us; we winter atheists who only tolerate the miserable conditions and wretched weather. Dark, cold windy days do not thrill us who were born under the sign of a rising sun.
But then, there are those who laugh at us summer soldiers and call us winter wimps. They say that without winter the summer crops would not be set nor the ground would not be ready. They also look forward to winter as it is a slow time for them as summer is a slow time for much of the rest of us. Farmers have fewer chores and, less tractor work and more time for cookies and coffee. People who ski can find places to go break their bones and try to convince others they had a good time. The people who operate those ski places want more and more snow so they can provide the things necessary for people to enjoy being cold and shivery.
Before all this, there is an autumn day that reminds one of stories and books where things were always perfect. One book I read when I was very young has stuck with me and I think of it often on days such as we have had lately. The hero was really old; he was already in college and was on the football team. The author described about falling leaves and piles of fallen leaves.
He told about the smell of burning leaves and how the wind would curl the smoke through the barren trees and brought that mental picture into perfect focus. The sound of Hero and Girlfriend walking through the leaves made the scene nearly perfect as we used to walk through leaves. We also knew what burning leaves smelled like, and when we did we knew it was autumn.
Men would rake the leaves from their yards into piles and then, on a calm day, would set them alight. That is in the past as it is no longer legal to burn things in your front yard. That is one thing many of us miss from “the old days.” Even today, many years after the burning of leaves ban went into effect, whenever I smell burning leaves it figuratively takes me back to a younger time.
Maybe I should add that the last couple of years Oklahoma has had such dry weather conditions that one small fire has caused major conflagrations. Thousands of acres have been burned, destroyed and made useless for the next few decades by some careless person and their small fires. Yes, there are also those idiots who have set fires on purpose. They should be roasted over those same fires but I have no authority to do so – only wishes.
Football used to be an autumn sport back in those good old days. As time progressed and the weather grew cooler, the ground grew harder and so did the players – or they didn’t play very long. Back in the old days the football season ended about the time autumn ended and basketball was considered a winter sport. People would not even have considered sending 15 year old boys out in 0 Fahrenheit temperature with a 25MPH wind to put the chill index down around ridiculous. Autumn, with its perfect, beautiful days were for football so fans could sit in the stands and sip from their flasks and cheer on their teams. Then everyone would go home and enjoying the walk back to their homes.
At this very minute I am sitting where I am surrounded by trees, the breeze is rustling the leaves, the sun is shinning brightly and there are no sounds of civilization. I can see no structors other than the ones on this ranch and do not even have an installed telephone. For me, this make autumn even better than I described earlier.
But then, maybe I live in a different world.
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