Flannel Shirts Soon Enough

My eyesight isn't what it used to be. I find it harder to ride at night as I can't make out the potholes and deeper cracks in the road before I smack them and give my skeleton a nice jarring. The bike will survive fine, it was made for that. My body isn't made for these sharp jolts as I can feel my teeth clack together when that shock runs through the handlebars, up my arms and into my jaw.

So I check when the sun sets and time the ride beforehand if the weather isn't cooperating in the morning. Today, the sun sets at 8:11 PM. By the end of September, the earlier darkness will be very apparent. Fall is coming. I've even seen the low flying geese blazing overhead at dawn once more.

What I'll miss about the summer is the long daylight and at times, room temperature outdoor air. I also love having the windows open to let that breeze through. If I could, I'd have one of those houses in the Cayman Islands where entire walls swing up on a hinge and stay propped up. I'd be OK with just having a roof over me. Outdoor living is liberating.

What I won't miss are the jungle dew points and the 90+ degree days.

I don't mind autumn at all. In fact, it can be enjoyable. The warm temps stick around till late October now, thanks to global warming. At the same time, the damned slop humidity retreats pretty quickly too. A double bonus.

Autumn used to mean school. My first year out of college when September rolled around was strange as I was done with school. There was no fresh start each September used to bring. New clothes, new classes and new people to meet were what September meant. It became just work, which didn't show much difference between August to October. Since then fall has meant a change in the weather only.

There's probably no other place in this country to enjoy fall except here in New England. There is a definite change in people's character and mood when it creeps in, and it's not necessarily a bad one. The cooler, drier air invigorates you. It wakes you up from those sleepy days during the height of summer and there is, in me at least, a boost of energy. I can get things done whereas in the summer I can draw it out. Try hanging wallpaper in an upstairs room when it's 90 out. That project draws out day after day hoping for a drop in the temperature.

After living here for so long, I'm not sure I'd adopt easily to a San Diego style Halloween where it's 70 degrees out at night. San Diego doesn't get N'oreasters either. What's great about those storms is that they remind you that you have a dry, warm home. New England can teach you just how great it is to be lying in a warm bed late at night, with a roof over your head while the rain, wind and tree branches slap the side of your house for hours. The next day the sun returns with nice, crystal clear Canadian air filling in. In San Diego it's a consistent 70 degrees all year long with no change in the weather. You might as well live inside a windowless office building w/o any idea of what the day is doing.

In a couple of months the leaves will turn and fall and there's no mistaking it then. You even can smell it. Back in the Jurassic epoch when I was a kid, you could legally burn leaves on your property in order to get rid of them. Sears used to sell perforated steel garbage cans you stuffed with leaves and set on fire. As young kids we would crowd around it as that was the closest we could get to fire w/o our parents screaming at us. I do miss that scent at times. However, that's been replaced by people firing up their wood stoves for the first time and that has a pungent but sweet smell. Unless they're burning packing crates they've stolen from work. Then it smells like a residential house fire.

So, it's coming.