But How Does It Know?

I wrote this piece a year ago, on September 2, 2009. The weather this fall has been non-descript and a little disappointing, so I thought I would post what inspired me last year instead.

I grew up in Missouri. Summertime there is oppressively hot, humid, and miserably bug-infested, especially back in 1970something when the 13 year cicadas and 7 year cicadas converged in the noisiest summer I can remember. Have you ever seen a cicada, aka locust? Red bulgy eyes, nasty legs and wings, and they shed their exoskeleton . . . . ewwwww, pardon me while I go dry heave in my wastebasket . . .

Anyway, about the time that school started, it would start to cool down. A little. Our schools had little-to-no air-conditioning back in the stone age, so we sweltered at school just like we had been doing at home, except with more clothes on. Can you hear me melting? Somewhere around Halloween time, fall would have really arrived, making Halloween costumes a tricky thing -- do I want to look cool in my costume, or do I want to be warm for the three hours I know I'm going to spend hauling this pillow case around to the six neighborhoods my parents will let me canvas? In Missouri, when fall really arrives, the days are hot, but the nights are chilly.

We lived five years in Austin, Texas. I had been prepared for the heat, and even for the humidity. I just hadn't trained for endurance. March through September was just like Missouri in July. Ugh. I wore a long sleeved shirt to the first UT football game we attended in September of 1982 -- it was a night game, and I tend to chill easily. I shouldn't have worried. The sun went down, and we figured out why ALL their early season games were night games. 10 p.m. and 97 degrees says you live in Texas like nothing else can.

Then we moved to New England. Winters are long and hard, and not too unlike Missouri winters.  It's icy here, with more snow here than there; cold, really cold, and a longer season than in Missouri. There is no spring in New Hampshire in March. Repeat that statement until you believe it. It took me ten years to be convinced of that irrevocable truth. Winter runs from December through April. There are two weeks of spring in late May, and then summer is on (except for this year, which included one month of monsoon weather otherwise known as June, an indifferent July, and finally August).

Now fall is upon us -- the most magical time of the year. This is why we live here. The humidity of summer is gone. The vagary of spring is an annoying memory. We cling to denial about the upcoming W word. Fall will last all the way to Thanksgiving. Oh, a couple of cold days will pop up to try to discourage us, but the glorious crispness in the air, the bright blue skies, and the splendor of nature's upcoming three-week long fashion show blind our sensibilities to anything else.

Two weeks ago, we were sweltering and arguing about whether or not to actually put in the window air-conditioning unit, adjusting window fans to pump out the hot stale air upstairs. Hurricane Danny drenched us this weekend with his coattails, but somehow Fall knew that September was here and school was starting this week. Night time temperatures dropped 25 degrees on Sunday. I've pulled on a sweater every morning this week and worn it until the sun burned off the chill.

Fall is here. Who needs a calendar?