There’s just something about this time of year. Standing at the threshold between summer and fall. As a kid, a high schooler — it was one of the most significant periods of the year. That point at which freedom is given up to return to the structure of school. Even if we spent the whole break working, summer was still freedom – money in our pockets, gas in the tank, weekends and evenings driving dirt roads, fishing, camping, and cruising. But when August came and September was on the horizon, we knew our days of carefree, wandering were coming to an end. The angst and restlessness beginning to grow at the thought of the first bell.
Yet there was joy in the changing of the seasons as well. It was the beginning of Friday Night Lights – the draw of hometown pride as those who had been spread out over the course of the last three months returned to the bleachers to cheer on the Boys of Fall. It was the first feels of crisp evenings, and cooler early mornings. It was that place where fog held in the air over the road ways and in the low spots as the warm earth met the cool, moist air. Even the smell in the air was changing as the grass dried, the musty odors grew — the decay of fall giving hint or herald, depending upon its speed — plants growing closer to the end of their lives. And of course, it was time for the last hurrah of fun as the County Fair came to town.
