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PAYSON ROUNDUP
FALL/WINTER 2013
Favorite Fall Day BY TERESA MCQUERREY ROUNDUP STAFF REPORTER
Photo by Guido Gerding
My actual favorite fall day was decades ago over the Thanksgiving holiday when I first went away to college. I didn’t drive until I had a full-time job, so I had been up at Northern Arizona University from the time I had started — during the summer session, right out of high school, so I could get some of the freshman requirements out of the way and start on my degree work sooner rather than later. It had been about four full months since I’d been home (from mid-June through late November). As much as I had looked forward to starting that new phase of my life, by that time I was getting a little homesick for my sisters and mother and my mother’s cooking. My parents were still married then, though a bigger paycheck had taken my father away to work on the Navajo Reservation. But it was a holiday and he was going to be home. I am not certain, but I think that may have been the Thanksgiving that both sets of grandparents and our paternal grandmother’s sister and her husband all came for the holiday. However, it is
possible I have mashed up about three different Thanksgiving holidays in my memory. At any rate, for some reason I was relegated to the sofa bed in the living room. Tucked under what seemed like several pounds of my maternal grandmother’s homemade quilts and afghans, I woke up with the first morning light. The house was quiet and warm — both in terms of temperature and for me emotionally, being back among my family after such an extended absence. In the distance I heard the Canada geese calling as they took flight from their winter resting grounds around the Payson Golf Course. To this day, with all those loving relatives gone, save for my mother and sisters, when I see the geese on the fall brown grass at the golf course or on the lakes or in flight, I remember that most perfect fall day all those decades ago and say a prayer for those who have died and those of us who remain. So as you are out and about this fall and winter in the Rim Country, if you come across those feathered flocks from up north, I hope you will take a moment to savor their simple beauty and incredible stamina they represent and find a bit of perfection for yourself.
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