September

Here I am in the Midwest, where we've had record heat day in and day out and the warmth started in April. Finally, we are enjoying a cool day -- the first in a long time. I do prefer cooler weather (note, I didn't say cold) than hot, humid weather. I never did like the heat and humidity of summer "dog" days, as they were called.

However, I just realized it's the middle of September already. I can't believe it. September 15. Wasn't it just Easter? Anyway, this cool weather has brought back some really fond memories of Septembers long gone.

I always loved September. After all, it was back to school, which I've mentioned enough times now to be actually repetitive, a favorite activity -- going to school, reading, writing, etc. And September meant the leaves were going to change soon, if they hadn't already begun their change.

Fall in New Jersey was beautiful. I know Vermont gets the award every year for beautiful displays, but NJ (at least in the non-concrete areas) could rival that beauty. The colors are -- well -- they're just like the beautiful pictures you see in magazines. Out here in the Midwest, fall colors are brown, tan, and umber (burnt and plain). And it has nothing to do with the weather. It's the trees. The colorful trees aren't prevalent in this area, so we don't get the colors. Maples are the best for color. We have maple trees, but not so many. We have lots of oak trees, but mostly they are pin oaks and pin oaks just don't color like the regular Oak.

Now, this year we've already lost a lot of leaves because of the drought. And yesterday I noticed that a couple of the trees that lost their leaves already have bloomed again -- yes, they have flowers on them, like in the spring. The flowering pears and flowering crab apples are blooming again. But, I digress.

Back to September in Runnemede. I would love to go outdoors after dinner just to watch the sun set and see how the leaves became even more vibrant in the setting sunlight. And the coolness of the evening which required a sweater or jacket was, again, something to be enjoyed. There was often the smell of smoke in the air, I suppose from people starting up their fire places, although I don't remember many people having fireplaces in their homes. Or perhaps, it was trash being burned in the back yard incinerators. Back then every yard had either a wire basket about 4 feet high and 3 feet in diameter in which burnable trash was placed, or an oil drum, and when it was nearly full, it was lit and the trash was burned.

The days were shorter, noticeably, in September, and the sun set around 6:30 or 7:00, and we knew that soon to follow were the holidays -- Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

Anyway smells and sights of September are something I shall enjoy as long as my memory holds. I'm getting to the age of memory loss. But I remember September, beautiful trees, cool breezes, and oh, yes, the pink cheeks from the cool breezes.