Fall

Fall, when you are freezing in the morning so you wear a coat, then leave it at school because it warmed up in the afternoon. When you are roasted by the sun in your car and then shiver as you pump gas. Fall is listening to college football on the radio while your dad grills steaks. Fall is the only time that playing football seems like a pleasant idea. Fall is when I usually start listening to Christmas music whenever the temperature gets below 50 degrees. Fall is my favorite season.

“Whenever it frosts and you can see your breath then we’ll go camping.” I used to love to go camping. Staying out all night around a fire, roasting weenies with a stick that you cut down yourself with your hatchet and sharpened with your pocketknife. Getting melted marshmallow all over your coat sleeve. Playing in the fire with you weenie roasting stick until it’s too short to hold near the fire. Drinking half a case of Mountain Dew. Finally going to sleep in your freezing cold tent. Waking up in your freezing cold tent with camping breath, matted hair and reeking of smoke. I had a lot of fun camping as a little boy and a teenager. However, I don’t recommend taking your wife camping on your one year wedding anniversary.

Camping is the ultimate Fall activity, but it takes a lot of commitment. Frankly, the older I get the more important it is for me to sleep in my own bed. As an adult, I like everything about camping except the sleeping part. Mainly because you need a day to recover when you wake up looking like Ronnie Spates, the resident wild man from my hometown, and smelling like campfire ashes. Ronnie Spates, curtesy of Google Earth.

Another great Fall activity is the weenie roast. It’s like Camping Light, similar experience but shorter recovery. Some people call them bon fires not knowing any better. Weenie roasts are like camping for those who are still in diapers, and women. Weenie roasts are when you have a small fire in the back yard, or front yard it doesn’t matter, and roast weenies for hot dogs. Hot Dogs are the finished product, so you wouldn’t roast hot dogs, unless you wanted to burn your bread. Then again, some people burn their weenie on purpose. I can tolerate a blackened weenie, I mean you’re already eating a hot dog, so your standards are pretty low, but I can’t tolerate a burnt marshmallow. I like to toast my marshmallows until they are a golden brown and form a slightly crunchy shell on the outside. You’ll know your marshmallow is done when this shell will slide ride off and leave the melted gooey part on the weenie roasting stick.

I love the colors in the fall. For just a couple of weeks every year, leaves are allowed to show their true colors before falling to the ground, forced there by the wind and rain leaving the naked trees to wait out the cold damp winter. Fall is a fleeting season and never seems to last quite long enough. Perhaps that’s why the memories of fall activities are that much sweeter.