Nature’s fall colors not as appealing on ground
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It seems weird that November has arrived and so many leaves are still clinging to the trees. It also might seem weird that someone (like me) would look forward to their falling because it's fun to rake them up into big piles and stuff them in bags. But this essay is not about the therapeutic value of wielding a stick with a large claw on the end to swipe at and gather up a zillion multi-colored dead pieces of tree matter. It's about other odds and ends having to do with the fall season.
Recently, I watched a girl and her mother in Washington Park. It was a breezy day, and the girl, I suppose 10 years old, was dancing in circles under the trees, her arms outstretched, head thrown back as she welcomed clusters of leaves floating down from the maples. Her mother was recording the scene on her phone. I was witnessing something very good, very lovely.
But people are fickle. They ooh and aah about how colorful the trees are. But when it comes time to deal with the fallout, their attitude changes. Awe and wonder are displaced by a sudden urgency to do battle, and lots of folks begin pulling out the big guns -- their monster leaf blowers! One neighbor, a registered leaf hater, owns a blower that seems bigger than himself, so big that he ought to put wheels on it to move it around the yard. When he fires it up, the roar is so extreme as to make birds from all over the neighborhood take flight. Squirrels plug their ears in panic, lose their balance and plummet from high branches.
I watched this neighbor recently as he finished blowing every last fragment of leaf into the street until his lawn looked like a dull greenish-brown rug. Then suddenly there was a sound from the north, kind of like a kettle drum roll. It was the god of autumn, seeming to say, "Silly mortal! Repent!" And in one mighty breath, all the leaves were blown back into the man's yard!
Fall sometimes leads to a philosophical debate about ownership and responsibility. Outside in the yard, neighbors pretend to be friendly toward one another, saying things like, "isn't it a lovely fall day" or "winter will be here before you know it." But behind closed doors someone's hissing, "all those damn leaves are coming from THEIR tree, and it should be THEIR responsibility!"
In the past, my yard raking has produced about 20 large leaf bags each year. I would empty them at the transfer site on Lucas avenue, saving all the bags to use in following years. But for some reason, I'm no longer allowed to do that. Instead, I was instructed to empty my bags on the terrace in front of my house, and the city would pick them up in a couple days. So later that day I built a two-feet high leaf ridge the length of the sidewalk in front of my house. A week went by, and the ridge was still there. But then one night, the wind picked up, and in the morning all the leaves were miraculously gone! Well, not really gone, just re-distributed in my yard and the neighbors'.
During this time of falling leaves and seasonal change, I would be remiss to ignore those ubiquitous critters who are so actively engaged in prepping for winter. The black walnut trees in my yard are like an emporium for those avaricious, maniacal squirrels who are never content with the cornucopia bestowed upon them by the nut gods. No. They send platoons across my yard to invade my bird feeders. I sometimes trap them, then put the cage in my trunk and drive them to some undisclosed location where there are lots of trees. An act of kindness, I suppose. But I will confess that I don't feel sad when I see one smashed into a little furry, pinkish-grey matt on the street.
My last thought has to do with the English language. Of all the expert linguistic scholars and grammarians in the world, no one has ever bothered to try and make plural words consistent with their singular form. It all seems so random. I mean, why is the plural of hoof hooves, even though the plural of roof is not rooves? Should more than one goof equal gooves? Should the singular form for the noun 'moves' be moof, as in the receiver made a moof to get open? And since more than one ox are referred to as oxen, should a bunch of gooses be a goosen, or mooses a moosen, or mouses a moussen?
And why in the world do we refer to the leaf family as leaves? I don't think it's because they go away, though there is an army of leaf blowers who would love to make that happen.
Pete Howard, author of “Rosebud Dreamworld,” lives in Dunkirk.