The fall guy... 05.11.08
ONCE asked an American
person I knew why they called all the other seasons by
the same names as us, but decided to call autumn ‘the
fall’ instead.
“The answer was simple,” she said, “it is the time of
the year that the leaves fall off the trees so it’s
called the fall.” Umm, I thought to myself. That’s just
stoopid.
I mean if you were to follow that logic through why
would you not call spring ‘the bud,’ or summer ‘the
stifling heat time when you need the air conditioning
on,’ or something else catchy like that.
Still, I couldn’t help thinking about ‘the fall’ this
week as I watched that old north wind rattle its way
through the branches of the beech tree in my garden.
I love that tree. Every season it has a different look
to it and it is simply spectacular. It’s huge, but it’s
spectacular. |
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That doesn’t mean that
every once in a while I can’t curse it. That usually
happens in autumn.
In autumn, in case you are not American and don’t know
this because you can’t get a clue from the name, the
leaves fall from the trees.
Not all the trees, but the ones that books tell us that
lose their leaves in winter. Even though we know they’ve
already lost them in the autumn. My beech tree is one of
those.
When they start to fall we suddenly realise how many of
the damn things were up there on those branches in the
first place.
The first of the leaves have been down now for a couple
of weeks at least, but so far I have resisted the
temptation to get out and rake them off the lawn or
brush them off the ‘pad.’
I nearly used the word driveway there instead of ‘pad’
but I guess if I’m dissing the use of the word ‘fall’ I
surely couldn’t use ‘driveway.’
Anyway the leaves have been falling...and so have the
prices. Damn, I thought I was writing a piece for our
advertising department again.
What was I saying again? Oh yeah, the leaves have been
falling...and I have been patient.
I remember the first year I moved into the house and
watched as the leaves swirled up into every wee corner,
covered the lawn and stuffed the drainpipes and I
thought I need to get out there and get this sorted.
And I did, but there were hundreds, nay thousands, more
still on that damn tree and by the time I had finished a
couple of hours back breaking toil and had just stood
back to admire my handiwork I noticed that the place was
piling up again just as fast as I cleared them.
Now I am more patient. For a start if you don’t rush out
and spend hours raking and brushing them away, some of
them will be blown away.
Okay so you might be passing the problem on to your
neighbours, but you never know, they might need the
exercise.
I’ve also discovered that a cleared lawn acts as some
kind of a leaf magnet and even if there are no more
leaves left on your own tree, leaves from trees all
around seem to blow in and just lie on your grass.
There are disadvantages to this policy of course. If it
rains and it has occasionally been known to rain in this
part of the world, the leaves get wet and when they get
wet they get slippery and when they get slippery you
could fall. (Hey maybe that’s why they changed the
name.) |
Which is why, even though I
like to hold off as long as I possibly can, there always
comes a day no later than mid November when I have to
get out there with rake, brush and big plastic bags in
hand and lift as many of those damn leaves away as I
possibly can for another year.
I thought about this too recently and tried to remember
the last time my better half hauled herself outdoors to
help with this annual chore. I couldn’t remember any
such time so I asked her why. “Oh it’s simple,” she
said, “you’re the fall guy.”
And she’s not even American! |
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A DROP OF
PORTER is
the weekly
column of
Inishowen
Independent
editor,
Liam Porter. |
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