It sometimes seems odd to me that two common terms for exactly the same thing may conjure up totally different images in my mind. Perhaps it’s a character weakness, but I suspect a lot of folks experience the same mental flip-flop from time to time.
On Saturday, for example, I drove up over Michigan Hill and on down to Independence Valley and Garrard Creek just to see the onset of fall colors. Oh, it’s just the beginning, but there are a few vine maples turning to orange and red, some ash trees with margins of deadly brown, and even the riverside alders have a pale cast to their greenery. Some willows are wizened yellow already.
Set against the perfect blue of a late summer sky, there’s no doubt that fall is waxing nigh, as my grandfather would say a few weeks before “turnin’ time” actually fell upon the Skookumchuck landscape. The visible signs were at hand.
When I think the term “Fall,” I envision a hillside riot of reds and browns and golds and greens, all competing for my attention. Bright lanterns of crimson deerbrush wave from the timbered edges, a yellow-gold blizzard drifts down from the row of cottonwoods that crowd the stream bank, and starberry leaves underfoot provide a luxury of design fitting the finest Persian carpet.
The air is meanwhile filled with scents known and mysterious, of drying wood and musty flowers, and the smell of horses. It is “Fall,” and my delight grows in direct proportion to the palette nature sets before me. By the time of Harvest Moon (and Harvest Trout!) Fall will again be my favored season of the year.
That is my perception of “Fall,” in all her hit-and-miss splendor.
And then there is the image of “Autumn,” a thoroughly unlikable vision of hard gray rain slanting against hard gray hillsides under the hardest gray skies anyone could imagine. Autumn, in a single breath, screams boredom and misery at the top of her lungs. She slaps us incessantly with her dripping mitten, determined to drive us indoors to choke on fireplace smoke while we shiver from her persistent drafts.
Forgive me, dear Autumn, but you are the unfriendliest of seasons. We understand the stark necessity of Winter, but heartily wish that you could be more like your brother, Fall.
Perhaps it is because Fall’s days are nuggets that are plucked from a pristine stream one-by-one to be admired and savored so long as they last, while Autumn’s grays are all wrapped in a woolen backlash of wet and cold and sniffles and coughs.
Fall days are held in the palm of one’s hand like perfect little wild strawberries eager to delight, while Autumn days creep up the wristbands and down the neck of my raincoat, intent on leaving me only a toothache of a day.
The fact that a splendid Fall day can be followed by mega-dreary autumness, and replaced by yet another fall day of flawless clarity and comfort proves only that God has a sense of humor, however perverse.
It is true that there are more Autumn days than Fall days around here, and not just because of my prejudiced recall; a quick glance at last year’s almanac brings the awful truth into keen focus.
This weekend is the last of the big campout holidays for this summer, and there are signs of a changing season everywhere you look. Will this Labor Day be marked with Fall or Autumn?
Seems like an odd question, but wait until the weekend; if you have to reapply the sunscreen lotion it’s been a good Fall. If you have to periodically wring out your sleeping bag, it’s Autumn again!
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Russ Mohney, who describes himself as a “peasant naturalist,” is a fourth-generation Lewis County outdoorsman. He has published several books and many articles nationally, and continues to write on a variety of outdoor recreation subjects. He may be reached by e-mail at russmoh@comcast.net, or at 321 N. Pearl St., Centralia, Wash. 98531.
