Even though the weather is not acting like it, I know that we are moving into fall… I LOVE fall, the changing of the leaves, the cool nights, and semi-warm days, the air seems crisp, but not so cold you don’t want to leave the house.  The leaves falling, and (sans rain) crunch underfoot when you walk.  I love it.  It brings back memories of, as a child walking home from Jr. High… kicking and stomping the leaves in the gutters, many of them put there by raking homeowners, some there by the breeze that blew down the street where I lived.  Chanting ” Mr. Loeffler, Mr. Loeffler” ( our milkman— YES they delivered milk back then, and we would pass his house every day).  Every once in a while, we would get a special treat… CHOCOLATE MILK!!!  Something that still brought a smile to my face as an a parent, and would treat MY kids with.. and they always found a delight… even though the “milkman” didn’t deliver it, but was purchased at the store.  A memory — fond — and never forgotten.  Crunching leaves and chocolate milk entwine in my memory as childhood memories.  I can smell those days.

Though I know that Fall eases (or crashes) into winter, a season I love but not as fondly, maybe because lack of sunshine??? holidays alone??? I don’t know, but the Fall is something I can look forward to, thoroughly enjoy and dream about in the other darker months.  If I could live in eternal Fall, I probably would choose to live there…  Halloween..  apples,  orangy hued dusk… playing “cops and robbers”, “mother-may-I” , “tag” and “HIDE AND SEEK” until our parents called us home for dinner… and then after, after dinner, if we were lucky, another hour or so until “the street lights come on”.. our childhood, our play time… our lives.  Such great memories…  Never forgotten.  And the best of them were when my brother, sister and I could play those neighborhood games together.  Little sis would get tired at times, but I could have played until midnight those games with my friends  from the neighborhood.  In my dim memory now, it seemed there were hundreds of us… but I know not that many… I DO know that I was very very lucky to live in that type of neighborhood, to have lived where I lived.  To have the family I have.  I am blessed!!