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Autumn leaves frame railroad tracks in the White Oak section of Stafford County. |
TODAY IS THE FIRST day of
Why is that?
I'll argue that it's because this season is the best of the best and the absolute finest time to be alive all year long.
One name just isn't going to be enough for something as good as that.
I mean, what's not to like?
The sky is so often a dazzling blue, none of that hot-hazy-humid stuff we can almost cut with a knife around here in August.
The air now is just so crisp and clean all day long, and we don't work up a little sweat anymore just putting on our socks in the morning.
There is no snow to shovel off the front steps or ice to scrape away from windshields, and the grass isn't growing as fast as it does in April and May.
That sure cuts down on those tiresome mowing duties.
It's just grand.
Here in central Virginia, we do have four bona fide seasons, and I actually enjoy that.
My parents moved to Jacksonville, Fla., when they retired many years ago, and my wife, the kids, a few dogs and I would often visit them during the Christmas break every year.
However, something down there didn't seem right in winter.
Oh, the palm trees were certainly pretty when everything back home was so lifeless and barren, but it just wasn't proper to be looking at so much green when the calendar had January coming up just a week away.
There's nothing at all wrong with a good, deep, crispy-cold winter, and it only makes springtime so much more welcome every year.
I don't mind the sometimes sizzling temperatures around here during July and August, either. They, too, just make this current time feel that much better.
Yep, I do admit to a fondness for four real seasons of the year, but, as I said, fall/autumn is the absolute finest of them all.
Even something as simple as a big old mushroom growing in your side yard after a good rainstorm seems a little nicer during the fall. Those mushrooms are sometimes whopping, not at all unattractive, and last a long time in October. There's nothing wrong with that.
Autumn also has the best sporting events of the entire calendar year, and they're even so well organized.
Friday nights are for high school football, we go to watch VMI or Virginia Tech play on Saturdays and then could take a drive up to see the Redskins play professional ball on a Sunday afternoon.
All the different levels have their own distinctive times.
There's something, too, about watching high school football on a Friday night that just invigorates the soul.
Maybe it's the french fries with vinegar I used to enjoy as a kid at all the Berwick High School games I can still remember.
Heck, I can yet recall the smell of those things.
Then there was that old, fat guy who used to shoot off his little cannon in the back of the end zone every time the Bulldogs scored. Or maybe it was the sound of that wonderful marching band that would make anyone's foot tap along with the rhythm and hands quickly come together when they were done. It was always so enjoyable to anyone who was still breathing air.
You really did have to be dead to not enjoy their music.
I've attended recent high school games around here, too, and no offense, but some of our local bands need a little help.
No so with this region's college programs. Virginia does have some wonderful football programs in all aspects of the experience.
Then we come to the Redskins.
My goodness, forgive me, but last Sunday's game was so very painful to watch. Maybe things will get better tomorrow. Not everything is perfect, but we can at least dream of a few touchdowns by the offense.
Still, fall sports are well-planned and often so very exciting and real fun to watch, and that's the point.
Being ordered and controlled as they are is so much better than baseball games happening any night of the week, or never knowing when the next basketball match is scheduled for.
Fall is so superior to any season, and there isn't anyone out there who can argue against it, especially for the sheer beauty of the changing leaves.
Many Eastern states even have hot lines you can call to find out when the trees are peaking in color in different regions of the state.
You're not going to find anything like that in springtime to go look at the emerging buds, or in summer when you might want to see a little ragweed.
No, fall is unquestionably the prettiest of all the seasons.
It's no contest there, and I'll bet you can't wait for the purples, oranges, yellows and reds to prettify our own woods and forests in a few more weeks.
If you're a fisherman, you know October and November are some of the best months of the year to be wetting a line, and hunters everywhere are now enjoying that delightful smell of Hoppe's gun oil on our hands once again.
Yeah, it's a very good time of the year around here right now.
I even like looking at all those spider webs you can see now everywhere on the grass in the morning, and they're only more beautiful with a little mist out there, as we have on these cooler days.
Now, you do have to keep your wits, though.
Did you did hear about the lady who bought an expensive shagbark hickory tree last October from a local nursery?
It seems that just after she planted it, the leaves quickly shriveled up and all fell off.
She went back to the nursery salesman and asked what went wrong.
"Autumn," he replied.
JIM KUNDRESKAS of Louisa County near Lake Anna has been an outdoors writer for more than 20 years. Contact him at
Email: Zbasser@aol.com.
