The weather is so nice, I could fall asleep outside. THAT is refined weather.

It's a day of good temperatures, low humidity, lack of bugs, no jets screaming overhead, few car horns, and, were I not at work, a willingness to give my Time over to a semi-conscious nap.

FALL is showing a little peek of her ankle.

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Kate Bush's album "Hounds of Love" is on at FUTURES. It's thoughtful Sunday music mixed with inviting, healthy weather...

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Fall is the best season on Earth no matter where you live. I haven't been anywhere near everywhere, but I am this confident about Fall.

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Old Summers were good. We all know that. They were the time of no school and loose-fitting days. The birds seemed closer and the insects sang when no one else would. Still, they took up that easy time, made it "normal", and as it moved forward, so did Fall - offering a cooler, dryer, more colorful, less sloppy phase to life.

Our wild grapes and strawberries were plucked and eaten, but the wild plums and apples were ripening. The cattails were drying into compact, fluff-bombs begging to be tossed. The crickets now sang in the afternoon not the evening. Their songs were crisper - no longer caught in thick, wet greenery.

The soft, fresh applause we received from green Maple and Catalpa leaves gave way to a dry bone rattle. The sun slipped off to our side, reminding us it wasn't going to hang around as much for awhile. Its glare became harsher. At its lower angle, the sun burst into your eyes just as you reached for the pass of the pigskin or while racing your bicycle home for Sunday night supper. The payoff was dry air and no Gnats hitting your eyes at high Schwinn speeds.

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School was in the schedule now. School CREATED the schedule! School renewed friendships with those who lived more than five houses away. We didn't notice but our parents no doubt sighed with just a little bit of relief. Summer may've been longer for THEM...

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Dad kept our lawns nice. He worked on them all the time. He had a hand push mower. He built additions to the house and the garage. He and Mom grew flower gardens, which stayed tended. The house was painted twice in the twelve years I was there. He made my brother and I a toy box and toy shelves. For me, he made a glass-front wooden display case with a carry handle, for my butter-fly collection. They worked hard. They worked all the time.

When Fall came, Dad took up all the Maple leaves with a hand rake, and we would burn them as a glorious, warm pile of Earth's sweetest smelling perfume. This alone was enough reason to help him in the raking. Sure, us kids were allowed to run and jump into the huge piles, but we were expected to again help rake them back into neat, tall piles before we began our warm, meditative, sweet, crackling, firey ritual of Fall.

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Fall. Nothing will ever match her.