THE FALL

"I like the fall, the color and all. I like the night owl's lonely call." 

This couplet is from a song performed by the Walton High School glee club of the 1940s. The lyrics are appealing and present the positive side of that season. But, for me, fall also evokes poignant feelings associated with loss and endings, especially the year when an ending became personal.

That hint of fall weather which signals conclusions and change is sometimes felt in Northwest Florida even before the hurricane season is over, before heat and humidity have lost their sizzling intensity. Perhaps it was only a mental state brought on by the opening of school, football games, band practice, but fall to me began in early September.

In childhood it had really arrived by Halloween when bobbing for apples out-of-doors was a chilly thrill and rushing to stand in front of an aromatic outdoor fire warmed the heart as much as hands, toes and backsides.

In the fall of the 1930s one could drive out into the country to farms with sugar cane stills and watch a horse pull equipment in endless circles to grind the stalks. Fresh cane juice was never a favorite of mine, but chewing the stringy, sweet sugar cane joints was tasty. Even better was eating the syrup, we'd bring home, on hot biscuits or waffles.

Seeing long plumes of smoke from the lonely houses we'd pass on these drives gave me a bereft feeling. The houses were little more than rough cabins. White children from these houses would come into town to school with grease-stained paper lunch sacks containing days-old hoe cakes, made from flour and water, and side meat, the fattier part of bacon. Few Negro children living out in the country had any schooling in the depressed times of the 1930s. Black children who lived closer to town usually had rundown schoolrooms, leftover textbooks, and with few exceptions poorly educated teachers.

Another short trip our family would take in the early fall was to the cotton gin at the edge of town. My sister and I were allowed to pick up the cotton bolls which would fall from the wagons as they'd pull up to the gin. Sometimes, we even got a short ride clinging to the slatted sides of the wagon, while our father talked with the owner of the gin. Freshly picked cotton, we learned, was not pure and snowy white, but gray and dirty from the fields and the picking. Even though it didn't have the cloudlike softness of the cotton we bought at the drug store, I'd bring home those cotton bolls and turn them over and over in my hands, once the scratchy ends were removed. “I'll bet it made someone's fingers bleed to pick that cotton," my sister would say as she pondered by collection.

The fall also signaled hunting season. In my mother's family, quail and venison were seasonal treats. My father abhorred hunting. There was never a gun in our home, and he refused to eat the gifts brought to us by hunters. “How anyone can shoot a beautiful deer is beyond my comprehension,” he'd say. However, for many people in the Depression South, hunting for game of any kind--possum, squirrels, rabbits, or birds--was essential for food.

The major holiday and community celebration in my hometown of De Funiak Springs was November 11, Armistice Day, celebrating the end of World War L. Plans for the parade, special events and booths were made far in advance. A carnival with enticing lights, ferris wheel and other exciting ndes would arrive several days before "Armistice." In preparation for the big day, school children would sing "Over There", "It's a Long Way to Tipperary” and recite “In Flanders Field the Poppies Grow." And, on Armistice Day, everyone was wearing a poppy sold by veterans in the American Legion.

Armistice Day began with the town's being awakened by a simulated can n salute. I never knew the exact location of this explosion, but it shook the house. My father would say, ‘I'm sorry Jim Phillips has to endure this sound again." Mr. Phillips suffered from "shell shock" inflicted on battlefields in World War I.

My mother always volunteered to work at the food booth of the American Legion Auxiliary. This would be set up on one side of the Main Street near the carnival and right on the parade route. Hamburgers and hot dogs never tasted as good anywhere as those served with a smile by ladies everyone knew.

As the time neared for the parade, my father would take a seat on a pench by which the veterans, various other marching groups, the local band, horses and automobiles would pass. He enjoyed poking mild fun at his WWI army and navy buddies, whose uniforms were getting a bit snug. Daddy refused to participate, flatly declaring, "To me, those men look foolish still marching, pretending they are glorious heroes."

I suspect Mamma felt some embarrassment at my father's antics and remarks on this patriotic occasion, but he would not for anything have missed this chance to tease. And, the men, apparently anticipating his comments, didn't seem to mind. They would give him sidelong glances, or an occasional quick salute and a smile.

For my sister and me the most exciting event of the day was reached when we arrived at an age to attend with our parents the dance at the Walton Hotel, built in the 1880s. We'd get there early as the orchestra was warming up and eagerly await the arrival of townspeople, now dressed in evening clothes. Nowhere since, not in New York, Washington, or San Francisco, have I felt such excitement at an event as watching those dressed-up people dancing. All too soon our parents, who had come in street clothes and only to watch, would bid others goodnight, saying, "We must get the children home to bed." Just once I'd like to have stayed until the very end, until the orchestra played "Good Night, Sweetheart". By the time I reached the going-to-dances-to-dance age, the Armistice Day dance was no more. I don't know why it ended.

Thanksgiving was for me a prelude to Christmas. Celebrating the day mostly set off a tingly feeling that Christmas was not far off. As in towns and s America, we'd sing hymns and read the Psalms at church. At school there would be classroom plays reenacting the Pilgrims and Indians scene complete with headgear or sometimes full costumes. And always, there would be a wonderful family dinner.

There was one very different Thanksgiving, however, when I was twelve. It was the first one after my father's death in January. That year no immediate relatives, with whom we'd usually shared this day, were in town Over a three-year period there had been the deaths of my father, grandmother, and two aunts. That had diminished our family. Other relatives on this sad Thanksgiving had sought new places to spend the day. My mother decided that she, my sister and I too should do something different. We'd have a picnic and invite my best friend, Evelyn.

Even though the air was chilly, we drove to a wooded area graced with brilliant fall color and spread our lunch under pine trees made melodic by a gentle breeze. In Evelyn's lively company, we enjoyed a happy time chatting and eating a delicious fried chicken picnic lunch followed by traditional fruit cake and other sweets. Afterwards, we collected a variety of colorful leaves and plump orange persimmons growing wild. We three children ran about with what seemed the whole woods to ourselves. W we'd stop talking or shouting, there would be no other sounds except that of the wind in the pine trees and an occasional raucous crow.

For as long as we were distracted by Evelyn's high spirits and enjoyment of the beautiful woods, everything seemed fine. But, when we reached home at dusk, for the first time since our father's death, we witnessed our mother's grief. She went straight to her bedroom and closed the door. We could hear her crying softly. My sister and I moped about in the hall not knowing what to do. Finally, I could stand the separation no longer, so we quietly went in to lie beside Mamma, one of us on either side. I think we stayed there a long time sharing this sadness.

Fall had its delights in seasonal color change, in the challenge of new beginnings at school, the joy of the holidays, but for me the endings, the dyings, remain a somber part of the essence of autumn.