Autumn – Some Observations On The Season

By the time you read this column…autumn will once again be officially upon us and the annual Ellettsville Fall Festival will have come and gone. Love is a strong word, but love is not strong enough for my affliction with this time of the year.  Fall just means so many things to so many; but to an outdoor guy…well it is the perfect time of the year.

I was discussing with my own class of kids the other day what it means to be melancholy. We watched part of a Walton’s show from the 70’s whereby grandma and Grandpa Walton get into a conflict over an old home that was to be torn down. Grandpa just saw wood, lots of it…and at a great price. Grandma became melancholic over the number of good times that she had had at this house…including the very first kiss with Zeb (grandpa). The show was a great lead-in for our discussion about pleasant memories of the past and many of my kids quickly recalled and remembered fun times with their families in the outdoors.

I too, tend to be melancholic for the many good times of my youth. Autumn is a season that is just extra special here in the mid-west, especially so here in southern Indiana. I am not sure why-but I have such incredible memories of being alongside my dad in the woods. Many Saturdays in the fall meant rising early to either fish or hunt. Often we would go to my Uncle Warren’s farm where we would start the day squirrel hunting and by mid-morning we would switch gears and cut firewood. By lunch time we would shut down the chainsaw, grab a bite of lunch on the tailgate or atop a big piece of firewood…and listen to Don Fisher call the IU football game. The air would be crisp and cool and I would envision the action that was going on; at times I would listen intently see if I could actually here any of the noise coming from the football stadium. I knew I couldn’t as we were many miles away but as a kid it allowed me to drift off and place myself amidst that crowd of fans…occasionally I would even allow myself to dream about making a great tackle or throwing a TD pass!

As the afternoon wore on there was stacking and burning of brush (a skill that I still use today around my own home) and then late in the afternoon we would load the truck up with split hickory or maple or any number of other types of wood and begin our slow trek home. I still don’t know what was so good about that ride home; maybe it was the fact that we had put in a good, hard day of work. Possibly it was the slow wind of the old pick-up truck over the back roads to our home…either way that 15 or 20 minutes produced some of the best napping I have ever had!

Trying to reproduce that slow and deliberate day that we used to have is probably a thing of the past. I don’t want to start knocking our youth of today but they are involved in a world that moves at a much faster pace. What would they do if while in the woods…they couldn’t get or use their phones to communicate with all the others in their ‘circle’? I think the cut-off is somewhere about 50. If you are over this glorious age then probably you can relate to the simpler times when small things meant so much. If, however you are on the underside of that mark it may be hard to understand how one would even want to go back to that pace…but I so often do!

Fall is a special time and I hope that as we move into a season that is all about change…that you will try and find a time to remember and go back…to jog your memory for the ‘good ole days’ of your youth. If like me that involved the outdoors then by all means go back and once again find those things that were so important to you. Leave the fast paced world we live in behind. Turn off your phone…in fact, turn off everything and grab a fishing rod, axe, or camera and just enjoy the colors, smells, sights and sounds that make up my most favorite season. Go start a campfire, put on a pot of hot apple cider…make some smores-invite some friends and family over. Take the time to listen to nature and soak up all that makes fall such a great time of the year here in southern Indiana. Go ahead; put your hectic world behind for a while as we all Enjoy the Great Outdoors.