Those Lovely Autumn Leaves

It’s Autumn and the colors are delightful up here in Northeastern Pennsylvania. When I lived in Vermont, it was much the same but I was on the side of a mountain and we saw far more trees from our house; the valley and the mountain on the other side was as full of color as it was with tourists and their cameras.

Years ago, in grammar school days and earlier, we walked through the deep piles of leaves (deeper then than now, as was the snow, the beds and the tables). We didn’t really walk through them as much as swish. Some trees dropped more leaves than other; some were more swishable; a few were just skinny, rather quiet, leaves.

I wish we could have made leafballs, like snowballs. They would have a whole different set of throwing (and packing) characteristics, but it still would be fun.

Now that I’m older, I still enjoy swishing through the leaves, but I also realize how the tree I park under has its ways. It keeps me and the car cool and dry in the summer, but it sheds an awful lot of leaves in the fall. I think it sucks up leaves from other trees just to drop them on my car; it couldn’t have that many on its branches.

Other trees, on other cars, drop their missiles as “donk … donk … donk” on the roof. Mine doesn’t, but if leaves made a noise, it would be intolerable. Theirs have no lasting proof of the falling nuts, as the squirrels carry them off; no known creature cares for the leftovers from my vehicle except, perhaps, my rake.