I don’t have a lot to say today. Just a few thoughts. As we enter Autumn, I’m getting a rush of feelings and nostalgia. Fall for me as a child was a welcome season. I looked forward to returning to school. I liked another chance to excel. I liked to be with my friends. I have little memory of seeing my friends in the summer other than my baseball team and my twin brother, Paul.
Fall was a time for new things. New clothes. New teachers. Perhaps a new friend. And new shows on tv. There were only reruns during the summer. Reruns and advertisements for new shows or new episodes.
Then there was the knowing that although school might start in the heat, by the end of September, the heat would give way to cool mornings and evenings. Then Halloween and Thanksgiving. I won’t even try to tackle those holidays in this piece.
What I do want to tackle is why do I still love fall so much. My work is steady. There are no seasons in what I do. Every day in my office is the same as the next. And when I do get out, I no longer play in the leaves. I don’t dress up for Halloween. Perhaps it’s the knowing that others are experiencing what I experienced as a child.
In school, kids will make jack-o-lanterns out of cardboard paper. Thy will make decorations out of autumn leaves. They will make turkeys by cutting out colored paper around their hand prints. They will play touch football in the fallen leaves. They will carefully plan costumes. Do I want to be a part of that? Not really. My day has past.
But there are little things I do. My wife and I decorate the house. I like to put out a scarecrow, a bale of hay, and some pumpkins out front. We take long walks in the cool weather. I will eat and smell all things pumpkin. I like to carve one of them into a jack-o-lantern on Halloween Night. I will watch half a dozen horror flicks in October. For Thanksgiving morning, I will cook a sausage from Goliad, Texas just like my Papa used to do. Why is this all so exciting to me? They seem like such small things.
I’m not sure, to be honest. What I do know is that they are traditions. And traditions keep me connected with my past. And when you have as lovely a past as I do, you want to remember it. My childhood was a golden thing. This is something I was fortunate to have had. I suppose I took it for granted then, but I’m grateful for it now.
But it’s not just about the past. It’s the possibilities of the present. There’s always the possibility that I will make new memories. For some reason, it seems more likely to happen in fall.
And so every year, I look forward to taking this journey that goes all the way to the threshold of Christmas; a journey I have taken many times and intend to take many times again. It will start very soon, and I’m no less excited about it then we I was 9-years-old.
Import complicated 