This Year's Fall Season

Normally, I do not like the fall season. I see it as a prelude to what I call the Death of Winter. In winter, the lush and soft lawn-grass turns an ugly shade of brown, crunching under foot. The trees’ limbs, once green with oxygen giving leaves, are barren and absent the soft rustle of leaves from a summertime breeze. The colorful flowers in my landscape are gone and only a memory with the hope I am blessed to see their return next spring.

Those who know me well know that I have an expression I often use to explain why I do the things I want to do. I quip, “I am 66 years old. I have come to accept that I have fewer sunsets before me than I do sunrises behind me.” With that comment behind us, I wish to say, “I am looking forward to this year’s fall.”

You see, in less than a week, Ann and I will be leaving for the New England States. I have always wanted to see the blazing New England fall colors along the eastern seaboard and against a rising mountain. And if I am going to see them, I better go while I am able.

My favorite outdoors writer, Gene Hill, probably whetted my appetite to see the northeast. He once lived there and wrote of its natural beauty. He also told life-giving-imaginable tales of hunting in the fall and the winter. His telling of fly-fishing in a babbling stream made you hear the water.

I have seen photographs of the New England trees’ beautiful fall colors, both in wide angle and close-up. Such photos almost make you hear the falling leaves on a cool, quiet morn and taste the colors you see. And as I am an amateur photographer, I want my chance to take such photos.

I want to see the towns this nation’s settlers founded. I want to walk the streets they once walked. I want to pause at Plymouth Rock and imagine if I can hear the faded words of the Pilgrims when they first touched our shores.

Secretly, I am hoping for a light snowfall while we are there. It has to be one of those snows where it vanishes by mid-morning and the roads are merely wet. There is something indescribably calming about sitting outside in the morning’s quietude with my cup of steaming coffee. And snow is nature’s sound dampening blanket covering the earth that offers us the chance to hear sounds otherwise unheard would. That setting and my coffee seemingly places me that much closer to our God.

So, in closing, I have to retract my statement of disliking fall and admit that this year, I am anxiously awaiting its arrival. . . .in New England.