The Turning of Fall
(I had intended to post this yesterday, but Halloween activities ended up taking up the entire evening)
Good morning, afternoon, or whenever it is that you read this.
When I was a kid, I remember we had an activity where we were given a calendar and we had to label the seasons for each month. I was mostly an A student, so when I got a lot of the answers wrong, my teacher called me up to see why.
I answered the following, more or less:
Winter: December, January, February
Spring: March, April
Summer: May, June, July, August, September, Early October
Fall: Late October, November
“It’s fall in September and October,” she said,
I remember pointing to the temperature on the board that said it was a high of 97 F (or about 36 C for those of you who use a different metric).
“It’s summer.” I insisted. The grass was still green, the trees still wore all their leaves, and it was hot as hell outside. She eventually relented and admitted that I could argue that we were still in summer. I won that argument because, even as a child, I was usually correct. Those of you who have been in the southern part of the US can back me up - summer begins before school gets out, and ends within a week before Halloween. I know what summer is – summer is 90+ F (or 32C).
Halloween was an amazing time of the year for multiple reasons, and one of them was the weather. It was the first time I could go out in the evening and get to enjoy the cool night air, and the colorful leaves as they danced across the dark streets. As someone who was very much an ‘indoor’ child, Halloween temperatures made the outside not only bearable, but pleasant.
Combining the longer nights, and cooler temperatures with dressing up and being spooky? Don’t mind if I do.
Our first major cold front of the season hit us on Wednesday. My Golden Hour walk around my neighborhood was so pleasantly chilly I actually could have worn a jacket. I didn’t because I wanted to soak up those shivers and take a gander at those goose pimples.
Autumn is here. Welcome back, my friend.