My New Love for the Fall

Weston delights in a hay ride.

I used to dread the fall when I was younger. Some signals were shrouded in back-to-school...such as the County Fair- nothing like the smell of cotton candy and manure being forced up your nostrils while you spin madly over the town. Every shopping trip stunk of back-to-school too. Pencils, wide-ruled notebook paper, and Trapper-Keepers lined the aisles of every store, mocking parents who saved school supply shopping for mere days before school started. New shoes still smell faintly of back-to-school to me. I am convinced the dentist office has stock in back-to-school air fresheners. The fall meant winter was coming, which I dreaded with equal fervor.

But something has changed. My kids now go to school. The weather goes from dry-heat to bearable-cool. The leaves undoubtedly steal the scenery show. Three particular trees catch my eye. They are planted directly in front of the cemetery and every year they are first to put on their spectacular burgundy and rust coats each year. I wonder if people's loved ones passed on help bring out the rich color in those trees. Fall means trips to the pumpkin patch, fall carnival, dressing up, trick-or-treating, caramel apples and homemade spudnuts, raking leaves and then destroying the piles...all things kids love. I think that's why it has grown on me so much. Now I get to watch my own children enjoy it.