What is is about Autumn that brings so many memories flooding into my mind? I know I have been complaining about how cold I am up here and how I can't wait to return to South Florida to be warm but today it hit me that I MISS Autumn. I miss this cool down of hot summer days, the crisp air and the colors that supposedly come with it. Even the subdued colors of this years foliage are so much more beautiful than the constant green of Florida. Not that I'm ready to move back north but today I realized that I am enjoying this change of scenery and weather. (You can not quote me on that when I am once again freezing my ass off.) Yesterday I was SO cold all day that I thought I would NEVER be warm again. It was a gloomy grey day, wind gusting off Lake Michigan at about a hundred miles an hour and cold, cold, cold. I froze going to church in the morning and I was not able to warm up until last night when I took the hottest shower I could stand while the space heater in the bathroom was cranked up to 200 degrees. Then and only then did I begin to thaw out and finally take off the 14 layers of clothes I had been wearing all day. I swore I would never travel to any place north of Orlando between the months of August and June. I mean I was COLD !
Today we woke up to the world turned white. Not with snow but a layer of frost that covered everything and gave the appearance of a light snow fall. We watched it slowly disappear as the sun got higher in the sky and began to warm the house and yard. By 10:30 AM the sun was shinning so brightly that we ventured out into the yard to burn some sticks and leaves. And that's when I realized just how much I do miss being up north at this time of the year. The small fire burning in the fire pit, the sounds of the crackling sticks and the smell of the burning leaves all brought back a flood of memories from my childhood, wonderful memories of being out front of my house and burning the leaves we had raked up from our tiny front yard. We wouldn't be alone out there, all the neighbors seemed to be drawn outside on that first beautiful crisp day in Autumn and there would be a cluster of small piles of leaves lining our street in front of each house. All the dads and kids were out with their rakes and you would have thought we all had acres of land to tend to rather than the 30 X 70 space that our homes stood on. There were always plenty of leaves to rake into small mountains for us kids to jump into because we lived "in the country" in Queens. We were farmers compared to those poor people living in Manhattan and the Bronx who didn't have trees outside their apartment buildings. We had a yard, small as it was, and along with owning property there were the responsibilities of caring for that plot of land. It was fun in the spring when I got to plant a tiny garden but Autumn was my all time favorite time of year. That tiny fire with its smoke curling up into the sky was the best part of the season. I can't smell smoke from an outdoor fire without being transported back to the 50's and my childhood. I remember when I got old enough to "tend" the fire while my dad looked on. That was big ! I got to rake the leaves onto the fire and stand sentry making sure no burning leaf escaped to ignite the entire neighborhood. I'm sure the entire process of raking and burning the "tremendous" amount of leaves that fell from our one pear tree took all of a half hour but in my memories it was an all day event that I looked forward to all week. My parents really had me fooled into thinking this was a BIG responsibility that I had to earn, which I guess it was but looking back on it now I now see how glad my dad must have been to hand off the rake to me.
Sitting in the sun on the beach in January is AWESOME, don't get me wrong, but I will always enjoy burning leaves in the fall. Even if I am contributing to the melting of the Polar ice cap.
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