AUTUMNAL MEMORIES (journal entry)

Photo: "Spiral Leaves"
By Skitch

    


THEN & NOW:



     Autumn is one of my favorite seasons. I must admit that it is one of four favorite seasons, for they are all special in their own way, but Autumn must be my favorite among favorites, as it is the season that is always gone too soon. Winter and summer bring beautiful gifts of extremes, but I tire of these seasons before they are over. And spring leaves me beguiled... yet anxious for summer. 

    But Autumn-- I never tire of and it's magic, and it is always gone before I am finished with it. I love the bright azure skies, so blue they make you catch your breath. I like breathing in the cool crisp air. And, every fall, I lovingly pull all my old sweaters out of their summer hibernation spots. Yep, I'm a sweater chick. I hover over pots of soup, and chili, and chicken dumplings. My eyes drink in the color on the trees, and when all the bright adornments have danced to the ground I like the “naked” branches just as well, showing off their form, baring their souls for our attentions. Nude trees display character so much better than the ones that are clothed in green or even blaze orange and yellow. Their forms are lovely. I love the sound of the crickets and da dats at night late in summer and early in fall. “Forty days till frost,” Dad would speak into the darkness on our porch as we comfortably listened to their chorus all around us, and the soothing sounds of the rocker, and the porch swing. I like the harvest moon, bright and full, hovering over us all, and the night sky full of stars. I love the sound of footsteps on dry leaves. I love rainy fall days almost more than the sunny ones. I cradle cups of coffee or tea. I read good books on long autumn evenings. I bake bread, and cakes, and cookies. I like the nippy weather, and waiting for the first frost of the season, and watching for the first flurries. I remember having a cup of coffee with Dad and Sandi and staring out the picture window at the frost covered grass when I was about thirteen years old. I remember arriving home from school to find steamed up windows and the smell of homemade soup greeting my weary mind.

    When I was a kid autumn was all of this and more, it soon came to mean the beginning of school, which was usually a fine thing. I had a few teachers that tried to beat the love of learning from me, but they had no luck with that. I loved getting to see my friends again, buying new pencils and paper, and usually an outfit or two and a pair of shoes. I loved opening my “reader” and scanning the index to see how many of the stories inside looked like ones I would have to read now. 

    As an older kid fall also meant football. I remember the first game I went to. I put on a jersey with green sleeves and Lila and I walked from my house behind the Pay Lo Supermarket to the ball game at the high school. Like so many other good things, Li brought football into my world, and I loved it. I loved the excitement, the nip in the air, and the smell of hot dogs and popcorn. We screamed for our team until we could hardly talk.

    When I was about six there was a certain magical fall when Daddy, Earl, and Wanda cut down Dad's crop of sugar cane and put it into a large vat with a horse or mule walking around and around it, grinding up the cane. They did 'this' and did 'that' and-- viola! They soon had molasses. This all seemed so miraculous to me. I remember ducking under the pole that led the animal in his circular trip, playing with Wendy and Wade, and dipping homemade biscuits into the sweet molasses. What an autumnal treat!

    It was eight years old when a conversation with my mother led to her discovery that I had never played in a pile of fallen leaves. She was aghast! A child that had not played in fall leaves? She would have none of it! She drug herself from her sick bed (she slept and rested much of the time.) She marched us both out into the woods by our home, and showed me how to rake up a pile of leaves. She then told me to jump into them. This seemed like such a waste of her Spartan energy that I was reluctant to do as she asked, but with her insistence I jumped. I sailed through the air as only a child can and I landed in a cushion of gold and crimson. I was instantly surrounded by a thousand leaf fairies, dancing wildly in the air all around me. What a wonder! What fun! That day has always stood out in my mind as a day that my mother proved she wanted me to experience all the good wonders in life, even if that meant that she had to drag herself out of illness and gather up the wonder for me herself!

    Childhood autumns meant canning, and pickling, and Dad's cinnamonly sweet apple butter. I knew that one day in the fall I would come home from school to find Daddy in the hot kitchen with  a huge pan of red apple butter bubbling on the stove. He had a long stir stick that allowed him to stand a few feet back from the tub, to avoid most of the hot splatters that were inevitable. The table would be cluttered with knives, and peelers, and cinnamon candies. The trash would be full of apple cores and peals and Momma's homemade biscuits would be growing a golden brown in the oven. Even I, the admitted chocolate freak, found myself anxious for one of Mam's hot biscuits and some of Pap's fresh, warm apple butter!

    The autumn I turned ten I was so sick -- once again. My temperature was up, I had a headache, a sore throat. I had been sick so much of late that I was very sick of being sick. It was terrible being confined to bed again. The county fair was in town, but that meant little to me. I had never been to one. I'd heard all about them, but I dared not hope to go this time either. It was just interesting that it was there, just down the road 'a piece' with people laughing and playing. It was something cool to daydream about as I tossed and turned in the bed. But then suddenly I was saved from my torpor! Two angels burst into the room, pulled me from the bed, insisted that I dress and accompany them-- to the fair! My sister Lila and cousin Wanda had talked mother into allowing me to go. That night I rode one wild ride after another. Wanda's driving was nearly as exciting as the rides! She drove like driving was a pleasure, something fun, not a chore or a necessity. At the fair, I listened to the screams, and the carnival criers and the music in the fair. In the car I listened to Lila's and Wanda's hillbilly yells out the car window. I returned home a changed girl.        

    Miraculously, when we arrived back home my fever was gone! I had discovered an intrinsic truth: that attitude affects your health. I'd been given a reason to rise above the sickness and I had risen. That night I learned a lot about the power of positive thinking and how to give myself a reason to overcome. That was a truly valuable lesson that has served me well ever since, but, even more importantly, I learned that there are angels among us. Right there in my home town, in my own family, were two of the grandest angels ever! How grateful I was and am to my sister and my cousin. They sure made a sick girl feel like a million bucks that night and helped me learn something that would serve me well the rest of my days. 

    I remember snuggling under the covers with Tanya and Ramona on a cool fall night, listening to the crickets outside my window and my sister Sandi reading, reading, reading. She read books written by Louisa May Alcott, Grace Livingston Hill, Andre Norton. She read Tom Swift and fairy tale books by the dozens. If she loses her voice early I will know it is all my fault! How grateful I am for those words! What a wonderful hobby and such grand memories she gave me! Tanya and Ramona and I would listen, we'd play with my kittens. If I was wearing a gown instead of my footed pajamas, we would make “lightening” (static sparks) with our nightgowns, after Sandi had turned out the light. We'd fan the covers and wiggle. We'd whisper and we'd giggle. And all the while the autumn night grew long and cool around us.

    All Hallows Eve is such a wonderful part of fall. In fifth grade I had the world's best teacher. His name was Mr. Dotson and he believed that learning should be fun. He went above and beyond the required curriculum, and introduced subjects to me that I'd never studied before, subjects of great interest. He taught Art , Vocabulary, Current Events, Creative Writing, and Photography. I was in school-heaven. That year our grade was in a Halloween play and I got to be a witch! (I loved Samantha from Bewitched and Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Wendy the Good Witch from the comic books, so this was thrilling.) My D and our wonderful music teacher/play director, helped me with a costume and I wore it for the school Halloween costume contest. I was chosen as a finalist and I spent a joyful day feeling ahead of the game and getting to know a guy named Shane who was hidden deep inside a robot costume. What a wonderful friend he turned out to be! 

    I went trick or treating twice during my childhood. Once when I was about two or three, Momma dressed me in a bunny suit with pink ears and a poofy little tail. I remember hopping down the street between her and Daddy, holding their hands, thinking of candy and magic. I remember that night with such fondness. But my parents were uncomfortable with the whole idea of Halloween. “Is it 'Devil's Night?'” “Would someone put a razor blade in their little girl's candy apple?” So, I did not go again until I was twelve. Lila talked Momma into allowing me to go because it was the last year I was allowed to trick or treat. Our town said only 12 and under should go door to door getting candy. I dressed as a gypsy this time and walked down the streets of our small town with Li and her children. I only knocked on the doors of two or three houses before a scowling little ol' lady answered the door. She took one look at my chest and told me I was too old to trick or treat and that she should call the cops on me! Then she grudgingly tossed candy into my bag.  I didn't go to any more doors, and I was concerned about eating her candy. I just helped Li watch the kids for the rest of the evening. I watched them pretty good too, because I figured we had found a real life witch that night! That experience helped me figure out that Halloween is fun even if you don't knock on the doors. From then on I just helped with Li's kids and they were always generous with their chocolate. I didn't dress up for a long time because I didn't want to have the cops called on me, and I didn't trick or treat anymore until I was an adult and lived in an area that allowed even the adults to trick or treat. In that town, they don't care if you have boobs and are “too old” to trick or treat. 

    One Halloween Theresa K. Kinder, Momma's niece, was living with us. She was accustomed to celebrating the holiday and seemed confused by our lack of enthusiasm. So she dug up some old clothes and took me outside to make a “dummy”. I'd never made one before, but I had a lot of fun stuffing his head and shirt. We giggled, and teased, and named him “George”. George proposed to Theresa K. before the evening was over but-- she rejected him. I think he wasn't quite lively enough for her.

    I remember carving a jack-o-lantern once with Lila, at “the white house I believe”. That would make me two or three years old. I didn't engage in this activity again until I had children of my own. We have such fun making new faces on our jack-o-lanterns! I especially love small white pumpkins. I make centerpieces for my table. 

    We sometimes get to go to the corn maze in autumn. Once my sons and I were lost in the corn maze so long that the owners had to send someone out into it to rescue us at closing time. We couldn't find our way out of a paper bag but we sure had fun. We laughed and laughed. I would love to take Daddy this year and get him lost in the corn maze. I think he would laugh a lot too.
    
    This year I lit fires in the fire pit for Halloween and for Guy Fawkes Day. "Remember, remember, the fifth of November!" There is a deep abiding magic in an autumnal fire. 

    Yes, Autumn is my favorite time of year, a time full of magic and wonder. And like the last fall, and the one before it, it's slipping away too quickly. Hold onto it while you can. Visit a corn maze, start a fire in your fire pit, drink some cider, carve a pumpkin, eat a caramel apple. Squeeze all the fun you can out of this autumn and then we're off and running to WINTER! SNOW! CHRISTMAS! I'll see you there! Right now, there is a good book and a hot cup of tea calling my name!