Change of Seasons

As Agnes and I get older and think about what we want to do and where we want to live when we finally really retire, we've been debating the pros and cons of various places. We considered living in Germany, but after listening to Agnes's parents complain about how bad things are there, I'm not so sure...Mom must have said Deutschland ist neemee schoen ("Germany's not nice any more") about a gazillion times while they were here. We've considered Florida (too hot), Alaska (too cold), the Carolinas (too religiously fundamentalist), and Texas (too hot, too full of Texans, and too small to hold both Bilbo and George W. Bush). We have grandchildren in Virginia and Ohio, and much of my family still lives in Pennsylvania.

But wherever we finally settle has to have four seasons.

I need the change of seasons. I need to be able to watch nature come back to life in the Spring, and watch beautiful women in skimpy clothes in Summer. I love the crisp, chilly mornings of Autumn, and the ability to turn off the AC and sleep with the windows open. And it's nice in Winter to (occasionally) look out the window and see smooth, unbroken expanses of glistening white snow.

Of course, each season also has its drawbacks.

Getting caught in a chilly Spring shower is no fun; a 90-degree-and-100%-humidity Summer day just sucks the energy out of you; colorful Autumn leaves are pretty to look at, but will eventually turn into heaps of ugly brown mess needing to be raked, bagged, and disposed of; and those smooth, unbroken expanses of white that look so beautiful right after the Winter storm all need to be shoveled away.

Sigh.

Right now it's definitely Fall. The leaves are turning color and starting to fall. Mornings and evenings are chilly, days are warm, and football is starting to edge out baseball on TV. Every local high school sports team is selling something to buy uniforms and equipment or finance a trip somewhere. Newspaper inserts are advertising Halloween costumes and giant bags of candy to feed eager trick-or-treaters.

And the local Costco wholesale store has had major displays of Christmas decorations for almost a month.

Double sigh.

Where to settle down eventually? Don't know yet. But I need my four seasons.


No, not those.

For now, I'll just think about the best side of Autumn with this quote I culled from a New York Times editorial many years ago...

"The glory of autumn leaves drifts across lawn and meadow, rustling at the roadside. For a time, gold and rubies will gleam and glint in the sunlight and whisper in the breeze. Then frost and rain will dull the colors and still the restlessness. The leaves will blanket the earth and slowly become again a part of the soil from which they grew."

Very poetic. And it beats thinking about raking and the roar and snarl of leaf-blowers, the curse of Autumn.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo