The conflicting nature of the maple leaf

Maple

Maples turn early, the most skittish of the green leaves. But they don’t have to go this fast. Mid-August? This far south?

I enjoy the fall, but I also enjoy my summer, and so the transition is sometimes more welcome than others. This year, I’d be fine with more summer, really. In another six or seven weeks the rest of that leaf’s pals will start to yellow just a tinge. And then they’ll start to fall somewhere late in October. By November I’ll be raking and waiting for spring, which comes in for an early, sporadic start in February. And that’s not so bad; summer will be around again shortly thereafter. But that’s next summer. And I’d be happy for this summer to last a while. There’s more swimming to do, more sleeping to enjoy, more summer sunsets to appreciate. All those long summer evenings will fade away faster than I’d like.

But this is nothing to be melancholy about. Except for the raking. I hate the raking. If I typed about it more the inside of my thumb would develop a blister just out of habit.

I have delicate thumbs.

Fine day today. Twenty miles on the bike, painful as ever. I’ve developed this unwelcome system of getting my legs back and then skipping town for several days or being otherwise occupied for a week and thus whatever tiny gains I’ve made have all disappeared. So the 20 miles today, which felt barely like a ride in June, can sap me today. It’ll probably get worse before it gets better.

And by better I mean the temperature. We had two days a while back that were unseasonably cool and it felt like you could ride forever. August temperature has something to do with the rest of this, and while I’ll miss the summer, I won’t miss the constant 115-degree heat index days.

Changed a lot about my dissertation today. A lot. We’ve been mulling this over for a while and today I finally shifted directions, which I’d been dreading, but after the fact it feels like the right choice. So, while I’m trying to not be tedious about it here, this move feels very positive.

And if you are actually interested in that, don’t worry, there’s plenty of time to be tedious about it later.

Wrote an open letter today:

(W)e’re going to need to see that video a few dozen more times.

Despite everything else that swirled around the season, the narrative of those guys in blue is one of our best tales. It would have been compelling if it were just another team, but the entire story was so gratifying to think of Kodi Burns becoming the archetype of an Auburn man in a jersey, Cameron Newton discovering his redemption and an unsung defense living up to their potential. An undefeated season is always a great story, but the chilling story behind Zac Etheridge’s comeback, Wes Byrum being his implacable self and Mike Dyer taking Bo’s torch to threaten the entire conference lives on.

We could discuss each player and how their contributions and subplots filled such a tremendous narrative. But to put it simply, this team is a joy to watch.

Nothing earth-shattering about it. That’s just a great production and it is worth seeing again. Got a lot of nice comments at the bottom of the piece. It also earned a reply from the people that run the thing. Now we’ll have to see if they take my advice. (I give them unsolicited advice. I am batting .500 with them.)

So, if you’re in Auburn during the fall, I have a new Sunday tradition. “Several students, fans, and alumni have volunteered to help with the clean up.”

I’ve rolled the corner plenty of times, and haven’t done it in several years, though I always take guests who come to town for the games. For a long time it has felt more like a family and college kid event, but given the strain the trees have faced — the stupid fires, the intelligence-challenged drunk driver and, now, the guy who’s going to jail — I’ve been content to have had my share. I threw a roll after the SEC championship last year, when it just seemed so unbelievable that no one noticed the cold. And I threw a roll after the BCS win last January, when it seemed so cold that it was unbelievable those guys above had won a championship in the desert:

That’s enough. That’s more than I could ask for.

The city and the university have contracted out the cleaning to a firm from Montgomery. And the university, in questioning if the trees will last the year, has taken what is being interpreted as a “roll ’em if you got ’em” approach. The experts’ belief is that the toilet paper isn’t the problem, but the trees are more susceptible to the cleanup. That used to be done by a high water pressure system, but now it will be done by hand.

And this needs to be the next great tradition. So several of the locals have been plotting this out. We figure a Sunday-after-church cleanup could be as good as a pre-game tailgate. So we’ll see you at Toomer’s on Saturdays and Sundays.

Two more weeks until the opening game of the season. That’s not a bad part of fall, either. So maybe I don’t mind that maple leaf so much after all.

Comments are closed.