It's still pretty warm at my house but it's feeling like fall just the same. The temps have dipped a few times and will continue to do so in the days to come. Some of the leaves are starting to turn colors--looking out the window in front of my writing desk, I see the sun streaking through yellow leaves on the tree across the street. And in order to see that tree, I must look past a small red maple in my own yard that is now a purplish-red.
I have always loved the fall. Even as a child growing up in a land that did not have fall as we know it, I loved it! Nigeria, the land of my birth and childhood, had only two seasons which most closely resemble late spring and late summer. But even back then, fall intrigued me. I remember looking at a Highlights magazine one fall in my house in Ogbomoso. I flipped pages and looked at one fall scene after another--bright orange pumpkins, corn stacks in a field with a fence around it, a black sky with a full harvest moon.
One autumn in my childhood my family traveled back to Ogbomoso after dark. The road we were on dipped into a valley just as a full moon was coming up. The face in the moon made it almost look like a Jack O' Lantern. Ever after that, my family called that spot on that road, "Jack O' Lantern Valley"
By the time I was in high school, my family had moved back to the states and those West Virginia high school days taught me to love football in the fall too.
These days when autumn creeps in, even as I say good bye to the carefree summer and get back into the busy schedule that fall brings to me, a part-time employee of the school system, I can't help but feel a since of excitement that comes with crisp Friday football games, hot apple cider, bright foliage, and the need to pull jackets back out of the closet.
