My grandfather always raked leaves on the first weekend in October every year when our small front lawn was covered in many varities and colors - and this year, 1953 wasn’t different. I was “volunteered” to help by my mom. And each year I asked – “Pop why do we rake leaves when they all will blow away?” He would chuckle whenever I asked this kind of question which I know now as a grandfather myself are so funny. He answered, “Because someone else should not have to do our work.” My grandfather was right again, and as I grew he taught me many lessons about responsibility. (A lesson which few kids (and adults) seem to have not learned from anyone.)
And so, we raked. There were many more leaves than could ever come from the few trees in our year – I knew they had blown from other yards and this made me sure we should just let ours go with the wind. I pulled my rake faster. Soon we had gathered a great mound at the curb – a pile that just needed my yearly jumping into. I rolled in them and tossed leaves above my head, forgetting my task for a moment as Pop watched and shook his head. Laying on my back he agreed to cover me with a leafy blanket – but with his usual warning, “Don’t you ever do this alone…a truck ran over a boy in a pile of leaves once and squashed him!” “I won’t Pop,” I replied as I wondered if it hurt a lot to be squashed?
In my younger days we didn’t have big plastic lawn bags like today, and we could burn our leaves at the curb (which was permitted before it was decided that leaf smoke was a danger to humanity). After the lawn was cleared came the fun part of my leaf duty – Pop struck a wood kitchen match, and soon we had our Autumn Pyre. Our big pile crackled and hissed and produced smoke that, for me, smelled better than Old Spice.
There is something about smelling burning leaves that stirs me. Today I see the end of another year as the days grow shorter and the winds of change blow. But as a kid the scent ushered in the best time in the “kid-year” – the time for turkey, pumpkin pie and presents was coming.
My Grandmother Ethel called these days “Indian Summer” (no matter if the temperature was warm or chilly? I knew she also liked the aroma of burning leaves too that seeped into her kitchen. She always told me it reminded her of a time long ago, when she was bright, young and colored in red and gold.
