Musings on Fall

Jim Gaffigan likes to make fun of people inspired by the fall’s foliage. Apparently humans are insensitive to the leaves’ impending doom, as are the leaves. Leaves only know spring and summer; fall is leaves’ hospice. They are about to die while humans gleefully jump into their funereal pyre and dreamily muse on the aroma of burning leaves. 

 This morning I knew that fall had arrived; its dead leaves’ scent carried on the breeze and there was nothing positive about it. Driving down the road I’m reminded of Monet’s Haystacks series; each painting’s colors dissimilar because of the contrasting light and atmosphere. Here the hay has been baled into circled stacks, laying quietly in their fields. It also means rodents are looking for new homes and I, like our neighbors, mean to not let them illegally enter our premises, that’s why I’m on the way to the hardware store to pick up some mouse traps. 

 Admittedly, the fall is both hopefully romantic and tragically melancholy. The steepled, white clapboard church in town stirs more potential, whether in the form of an encouraging beginning with a wedding ceremony (“white lace and promises. . . .”) or a sorrowful ending with a funeral (“all the chapel bells were ringing. . . . ”). The surrounding foliage forms a vibrant sunset of color, giving each ceremony more gravitas and possibly forewarning us of the coming darkness of our winter.

 Paradoxically, fall also is the time when everything starts to happen. While young lads spent the summer morphing from dumb dork to brainy nerd, young ladies spent the summer morphing from gangly stick figures into the curvy long legged stuff of teenage dreams. Fall and boys intermingled. 

Recall the famous poem we all learned in high school: 

 Trees by Joyce Kilmer: 

 I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree * * * 

 A tree that may in summer wear a nest of robins in her hair. * * * 

 Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. 

 Alternately, our high school version went like this: 

I think that I shall never see a boy that quite appeals to me. 

A boy who doesn’t alway wear a pound of grease upon his hair. 

A boy who wears his shirttails in and doesn’t have a silly grin. 

But boys were made for fools like me and who on earth would date a tree. 

Baking is another fall staple. Warm kitchens, the aroma of cinnamon in the air, pink cheeks and pumpkin pies, pecan pies, cherry pies and the 'all American' apple pies. All varieties of apples fill the grocery aisles. Scott and I have debated the pros and cons of taffy apple vs caramel apple. Most important, though, is the quality of the apple beneath the outer sugar shell. Scott: forever my bright red shiny crispy apple.