YIKES! The last day of September !!!!! Whoa, Time, please slow up a bit! ( How do you LIKE that? September rushing away like this? Not even a warning! ) Oh, well, I DO like October! I've always liked October; that is, once I 'got the hang' of what October was. That took place in elementary school, for me. I shall never forget ( unless I get really old ) the day we were handed a sheet with a drawing on it, to color. It was a large pumpkin that covered almost all of the 8 1/2 x 11 standard sheet of paper. I don't know if all of my classmates were given an orange crayon or not. I can't remember if we had a box of eight crayons, either. It was my first year in school, and it must have been the beginning of October.
( I was probably all agog during the first month of school, September. I recall being so entranced by the teacher's reading a story to us. I was almost sent to another dimension, concentrating so much. I think her name was Miss Stapleton. )
Oh, do I ever love the color of orange! I always have, and now I wonder if it is because I was so young and we had to color a lovely, large, orange pumpkin to celebrate the advent of October ...
To me, that pumpkin was the most gorgeous pumpkin I ever saw. I treasured it always, to this day. I always liked school, because of the opportunity of learning. I was forever pleased to learn something. Even now I would like to attend college classes.
I always enjoyed having poems read by the teachers in higher grades, too. I was so delighted to hear and read poems about fall, October, and plants, weather, colors, in October. Do you remember the first line "October gave a party..."? The poem was October's Party by George Cooper. I just read that one today.
Another poem I am so fond of is September by Helen Hunt Jackson: "The golden-rod is yellow; The corn is turning brown; The trees in apple orchards With fruit are bending down," I do believe that I fell so deeply in love with poetry in elementary school, perhaps in fifth and sixth grades. That is another extraordinary gift to me.
Another reason I like October is because of the Autumn Change of Color on deciduous trees in certain climate areas. I used to live in northeastern Pennsylvania, one of the places that has an awesome change of color in the fall season. The color change begins in the more northern part of the continent, and slowly makes its way to the southern areas. The South doesn't have much change of color, because there are different trees down there. I wonder if the Mason and Dixon Line might be part of the border line? Perhaps, perhaps not.
One year about thirty or forty years ago, I visited relatives in the fall for various reasons, and it turned out that I saw the northern leaves, then the leaves somewhat south of where I lived, and then in Maryland, Virginia, and another area where I was visiting other families. When I realized what had happened, it made me doubly happy that I could see the Autumn Change of Color almost everywhere! You might say that I was on a foliage tour three or four times that fall.
It is said that New England has the best change of color in autumn, and a few times I had the opportunity to be traveling in New England at that time. Aah, the colors are so magnificent!
One more reason why I love October so much: it is my birthday month, in the first third of those thirty-one days! There was a gift to me one year, when my first grandchild was born on my birthday! This is an infrequent happening, and I was almost deliriously excited! I was unable to be at her birth, which was quite a disappointment. It didn't break my heart, though, because it already was such a great gift to me.
Happy fall, everyone! Are you happy that it is here? I am!
I shall see you at the Corner Post ...
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