You find the first maple tree you can, because it is always maples, owing to their physiology, and you wait until the first leaf goes. Then you point that out:
And you say “Maple leaves are quitters!”
You can tell a lot about a person by the sorts of jokes they like. The people that like that joke, the people that get that joke, are worthy of more such cynical, nerdy humor.
Anyway, I saw that leaf today. I had to deliver a lecture on recording sound — photographs yesterday, sound today, television tonight, video tomorrow, that multimedia experience is paying off this week! — gathering and editing. On the way back to my own building afterward was when I found that leaf, the first real sign of autumn, the first real quitter of the season.
And thus begins the long sigh into winter.
