The autumnal equinox
By Jon Worley

Fall. Autumn. That time of the year when school starts and the Missouri Tigers faithfully get stomped by many a poor football team.

Man, I love this time of the year.

Unlike most people (and most religions, for that matter), I've always associated fall with rebirth and spring with death. Perhaps this is because I was one of those silly people who enjoyed school and liked the idea of starting anew every year. Actually, I've gotten to the point where I'm bummed if I don't move every year. This feeling usually arrives sometime in August and doesn't leave until the new year. Some sort of weird depression, particularly strong now since the temperatures here in central Florida still reach the 90s, and we haven't seen a low in the 60s since the beginning of June.

But this year Florida proved some allegiance to my internal clock. After a bizarre killing frost at the end of March, the leaves on all the trees in town suddenly fell off. Indeed, most of the tropical trees and plants have yet to recover from that unusual blast of cold air. Of course, last winter was weird. We average about one killing frost every five years, but we had three in February and March, the final one the worst.

Frost; what a concept. I really miss fall in the midwest. A chill in the air, with the smell of decaying leaves wafting on the breeze. Good reasons to wear sweatshirts and jeans (and even jackets, something I do about twice a year in Florida). All the vestiges of the old order slowly falling to the ground, making me giddy for the prospects of tomorrow. Anything is possible; I just have to imagine and my future will become real.

Oh, sure, you say this was just my youthful idealism. Nothing to do with something silly like seasons. When I get old I'll feel differently. I'll actually desire a winter home in Florida. I'll quit having these wet dreams about ice storms, with no more erotic fantasies of snowball fights.

Alright, so winter is only my second favorite season. I may lust after all the manifestations of freezing water, but I love fall. Autumn. Whatever.

Most of the good things in my life happened in the fall. I fell in love with my wife in the fall of 1989. I started on at the M.U. student paper in 1988. The Royals won the World Series in the fall of 1985. I had a blast with the Clinton campaign in the fall of 1992. I left Clovis, N.M., in the fall of 1987. I got married in the fall of 1995. All good things, all of them happened in the fall.

So I'm tired of hearing all these stories of gloom and doom, about how fall is really a melancholy season, a time for reflection and shuttering the windows of the past. Don't tell me that. I don't want to hear it.

Walk into that chill breeze and revel in every dank smell that flies past your nose. Rake those leaves and then roll in them, allergies be damned. Wander out to the college football game snockered at one in the afternoon. Have sex on the cold, wet grass of your youth. Because these days are transitory; no one lives in autumn forever.

Though I certainly wouldn't mind.

Jon Worley is looking forward to next February, which is the next time he'll be able to wear jeans without sweating excessively.

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