Autumn Leaves

Do you want to hear something very sad? Probably not, but I will tell you anyway. I have two big piles of Magnolia leaves plus all the "whatever they are" leaves that haven't been raked yet, and no one can play in them because of the rain. Now, to me, that is sad.

I remember growing up in Nevada where our annual rainfall was 2-3 inches. Since our trees were primarily elm and poplar, which have smallish leaves, it took a lot of leaves to make a pile to brag about. That explains why we didn't make piles. We made floor plans on the lawn instead. We had a living room with a vacant spot which was the front door. We had a dining room and kitchen. We had hall ways and bedrooms and (giggle, giggle) bathrooms. We arranged leaves for furniture, fireplaces, and appliances. Quite often the leaves were merely side-by-side instead of piled up, but we had our house. AND (drum roll please) the leaves never got wet.

We had so much fun until the cheating began. You know how siblings are. Some of us would take leaves from someone else's bedroom to remodel our own. If we didn't increase our square footage, we enlarged our bed or added a dresser. After a couple hours of building, playing, rebuilding, and taking leaves that weren't ours, someone would finally get angry, kick leaves from one end of the yard to the other, and stomp off. That ended the play for the day. We could always play tomorrow, or the next day or the next year. And we did, until we out-grew our childhood.

Walking to school in autumn was my favorite thing to do. Yes, we did walk to school. It was a mile or so across town. Instead of walking on the sidewalks like we were supposed to, we would walk in the street beside the curbs because that is where all the yellow, crunchy leaves were congregated. What a wonderful sound they made as we shuffled our feet through them, kicked then into the air, or threw them at each other. The sound of leaves was accompanied by laughter of four little kids. Fun, fun, fun. What happy memories!

I guess that is why I feel like my leaves have gone to waste. They aren't very crunchy anymore. They aren't kick-able  Well they are, but they just cling to your shoes in a big glob. And they certainly aren't pretty. They are black and brown and somewhat mushy all because of the rain. I'll have to admit, though, as much as soggy leaves sadden me, I do love the rain.

I was hoping the rain would be short lived, that the sun would return and the leaves dry out. Our Thanksgiving gathering would be a perfect time to re-scatter leaves. I'm sorry that won't happen this year. The rain is here to stay for at least a week. I guess I will have to be satisfied by looking at a photo album with pictures of the one autumn we had sunshine for days while the leave were in a huge pile. That is the year the kids and adults alike played all afternoon. They ran through the pile. They jumped into it. They hid under it. They threw the leaves at each other, and threw each other into it. No one had out-grown their childhood on that day.

Just like my brothers, sister and I had done sixty years ago, the current generations laughed, shouted, played, and made wonderful memories. Fun, fun, fun. I am so glad I have the photos of that wonderful day.

I hope you had a God day. I had a wonderful day that included a Holiday Brunch with women from my church. God is good.

Jan