Bob CollinsWelcome to meteorological autumn. How was your meteorological summer?
My morning walk is again cloaked in darkness. The sunrise song from the birds has mostly disappeared, save the occasional screech of a blue jay, which if you listen long enough begins to sound like a newspaper’s comments section.
Still, autumn is the most underrated of the seasons and it’s not really its fault, I contend.
As glorious as it is, spring is overrated. Spring gets a “bounce” from not being winter. Autumn gets penalized because winter is coming next, as if that’s autumn’s fault.
I stopped into several businesses yesterday and, as is tradition in these parts, the talk turned to the weather and an appreciation for the heavy dew, good-sleeping-weather nights of late August/early September. But each conversation ended with angst over a season still a full season away.
Autumn can’t get no respect, I tell you.
Which is why I have a particular appreciation for Audrey Kletscher Helbling’s post today on her Minnesota Prairie Roots blog, who acknowledges the melancholy of the season, and doesn’t let it get to her, although, in the best tradition of the season, she notes what’s coming.
Autumn is what happens when your sibling is a ne’er do well.
Spring belongs to not being winter. Summer belongs to the people. But autumn belongs to nature.
For now, I am ignoring the fourth season.
