But There It Is

Fall arrived here in Southeastern New England Thursday after the rains. Even though I use the term, I'm never sure what to make of the phrase, "Southeastern New England." It's like maybe we should say 'y'all' when we tell you to 'pahk yer cah' after we drink our coffee milk. The same group who fretted about sweaters the last couple of mornings are the same ones of us who were unhappy when the temps and humidity were both in the nineties this time last week.

I have friends and former colleagues in the Southwest (where the 'y'alls' are really real and coffee milk is a huh) who dream of just those conditions as they continue to hit triple digits with no rain in sight for weeks and months at a time. Proving that some of us would bitch if you hanged us with a new rope. And if you doubt me I can send you a list of people you can experiment on. And you're right, it does look like a phone book-because it is. String 'em up alphabetically.

I'm a spring and summer guy, to be honest. Yeah, I'm fortunate to have lived my life (so far) where we have four seasons. And I concede the leaves changing in New England are pretty as long as I don't have to rake them up or try to drive on them after a rainstorm on a 'quaint' town road somewhere. Here in this corner of the country I get to rave about The Big E mainly because I never went to county fairs as a kid and, hand on my heart I didn't get to it for the first fifteen years we lived here.

It opened on Friday and runs through the first weekend of October and as I'm fond of pointing out to people no other vowel, upper or lower case, gets an exposition held in its honor. Plus they have cream puffs and food vendors where I swear everything on the menu is deep fried, to include Oreos and ice cream. Of course I never eat any of that food or know anyone who does. Of course.

I would like to stay stuck on fall and The Big E until Spring, but that's not how the world works. You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain even though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon. The seasons change and we with them. Some of us are more recent arrivals than others and some gone who were here a moment ago. Each of us is here to enjoy what we find to enjoy, until it all ends. From the beginning.

-bill kenny