Published In The Great North Arrow, October 2021: Autumn Is Awesome

- jim Young

“To everything, turn, turn, turn,

There is a season, turn, turn, turn.” - Pete Seeger / Ecclesiastes 3

Autumn is awesome!

It’s my favourite time of year. 

And next to Christmas, Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday. (Hallowe’en is my third favourite holiday so it’s a bonus that my second and third favourite holidays both fall in my favourite season.)

As cooler days arrive, I don’t mind wearing a jacket again to enjoy some quiet time outdoors. When spring arrives, I will be anxious to rid myself of any such extra clothing, but for now it’s a nice change of pace.

How gratifying it is to step inside on a cool day to the comforting warmth and scent of a friendly fire crackling in the woodstove! Thanksgiving dinner will complement those smells with a delicious aroma of its own. 

The days are getting shorter and that’s okay with me too. It will be easier to rise before the sun to witness another daybreak. The last campfires of the season can be started earlier and enjoyed without bothersome mosquitoes and blackflies.

Autumn is also a time of melancholy. I like melancholy. 

There is something a little sad about autumn that gives me pause to reflect on, not just my life and where I am, but also on the lives of my many loved ones... those that still are and those that once were.

Each year there are more added to the latter category and yet somehow the former category never seems to diminish. If that isn’t reason enough to give Thanks at this time of year, I’m not sure what is.

This year there were 3 very special people that were added to the “once were” category in my family. All were lost within a single week.

I am very sad to have lost each of these individuals but I am very thankful for the time I had to know them and call them “friend”.

It will be another quiet Thanksgiving here for My Shirley and I. We used to have our turkey dinner on the Saturday of Thanksgiving Weekend so we could enjoy leftovers all weekend before heading back to work on Tuesday. But since that's not been an issue for a few years now, we will be enjoying Thanksgiving Dinner on Thanksgiving Monday again this year.

We like to do the same for other holidays now as well, although Easter's still a toss up on whether we should have our Easter Dinner on Good Friday or Easter Sunday. Christmas Dinner, however, has always been celebrated only on Christmas Day regardless of which day of the week it falls.

Of course we also don't often have guests' schedules to consider as we most often celebrate special holidays on our own. 

There are some very specific seasonal chores that are part of our Thanksgiving traditions.

All the wood has been cut and stacked so at least that’s out of the way. But there's still lots of outside chores to be done to signal the end of another summer for us, such as putting away the patio set and lawn ornaments, draining and turning off the outside water lines etc. However, in the hopes it will be a nice weekend for Thanksgiving and we can get one last chance to enjoy them, we can also leave those chores until Tuesday. I guess that's the extent of "going back to work” after Thanksgiving weekend for us.

Once Thanksgiving is out of the way it will be time to prepare for those “Ghoulies and ghosties, and long-leggity beasties, and all things that go bump in the night”.

We will prepare treats for all the young trick or treaters as an offering, in the hopes that we might fend off any tricks from being played on us. Of course we might have a trick or two of our own at the ready to give them a little scare as they gingerly approach our door having to pass by an assortment of witches and goblins that have come out to greet them.

I prefer a gentle segue from autumn into winter, however last year Hallowe’en had not quite ended when winter fell upon us barely allowing us time to catch our breath.

It seems Mother Nature does not give a rat’s ass about my preference but I can always hope. And regardless of what Mother Nature throws at me, I am already saving up some great memories to be thankful for at this time next year.

- 30 -