finding fall

by Tony Niccoli

I remember the bleachers. Long before the school had built the new stadium and installed those wretched metal abominations, the cause of burned thighs in August and frozen jeans in November. Long before the hill was built up behind the press box to block the crosswinds. When the wood would flex just a little as you first sat down, and bounce like an earthquake every time the home team scored. I remember those bleachers, and every time I do, I smile. It would be years before I was old enough to be out on the field, and so I spent my fall in a steady progression of layers, a transition from Pepsi to hot-chocolate, a season whose success was measured by the length of play. Seeing the last game in a tee shirt or windbreaker almost never happened, but everyone has a rebuilding year now and then. Making it all the way to winter parkas and pom-pom hats meant a trip to state. I grew up on those bleachers, and to this day nothing feels more like fall.

I remember the drive to the games. Burgundy station wagon, brother’s car seat with me in the back. The back roads in Ohio felt like a Technicolor tunnel that time of year. We passed under outstretched branches that started with a rich abundance of greenery. It would be light out, the shade welcomed as it blotted the late summer heat. By late September, those same branches would be just beginning to show some signs of change. That same drive in mid-October was made just before sky began to soften, but the remaining light bounced beautifully off those orange, red, and yellow polka dots that blurred past closed windows on crisp afternoons. I would stare out and watch the season pass before my eyes, one trip at a time. I didn’t realize then that we were cutting through a National Park to get to the games. We just called it the woods back then, and I guess I must have assumed that every area looked this way.

It was a good year when you still made the drive in November. The leaves had given up any hope of hanging on. Their yellow and brown carcasses scattered along the side of the asphalt as the car whirled past in the evening dusk. In November the bleachers would bounce and the cowbells would clang. Every pass was a party by November, every score a symphony echoing across an otherwise silent town. Even through mittens, the clapping of a few hundred hands could almost out-sing the wind.

A few years later, I started watching it from a lower perspective. Looking up at those new metal bleachers, then realizing that if I stopped running, even for a moment, the wind was going to punish my stillness. I used to wonder if the sweat would freeze on the side of my face as I watched my breath billow and cloud.

And now, it seems to come a little later every year. It could be my disconnection from the traditions that used to frame my season. It could be the marking of Halloween and Thanksgivings shifting my perspective away from the gradual march that was prescribed by the passing of game-days. And, in an ever-changing world, it just might be the incessant cycle of late summer fires, unprecedented heat waves, perpetual droughts, and uncertainty of autumn timing. Sweater weather seems to be a thing of the past. I turn off the AC at the end of October and immediately feel like I need gas up the snow blower. I sweat on our after-dinner walks for as long as the sun remains in the sky, and then move directly to a winter coat and gloves by the time we get our first evening walk in the dusk. The autumn equinox, no longer the harbinger of crisp mornings, and fuzzy flannel has become to me the day we put away the bathing suits, and wax the snowboards. I remember, and then long for that special something that used to come between.

If it wasn’t for the annual societal screaming of “Pumpkin Spice” I would be lost. You might ask me when fall happens, and I’d point to the calendar page for March as I shrug in disbelief.

We had a saying in Ohio, and for years I thought it was clever and original. I later came to find that they have that saying everywhere on planet earth, and possibly written into the operating codes for the rovers we send to Mars. It goes something like, “if you don’t like the weather in [place] just wait five minutes and it will change.” It’s a trusty staple of small talk the world around, and an altruism that is stunning in both is simplicity, accuracy, and comedic longevity. But here I sit, astride the final days of summer, patiently watching scores of five minutes pass. The weather just doesn’t change. Sure, it intensifies. It ebbs, and it alludes. But I’m once again writing an article for September-October publication in the dreamy hum of chilly, conditioned air. My windows closed to hide away from the smoke. I remember the days of soft autumn breezes. The excitement of the first light jacket. Being able to wear a flannel over a tee shirt and still feel just a touch too cool. I remember waffle print long johns. Warm apple cider fresh from the farm. Gourds growing in side-yards. I pine for my autumn and feel my hopes fall. But then I remember the bleachers. And how they were fall. Maybe for you it was different. A certain candle, a smell of cooking, a hand-me-down beanie, or that first day of warm wool socks. Maybe for you it was an alternative sport or tradition. A feeling in your heart. Whatever it was, and wherever you found it – it was fall. The changing, the winding down, the point where a school year was feeling now well established and no longer novel and fresh. When the closet got shifted. The first time in months that you had dug to the back of those drawers. The last day of driving with the windows cracked, or the first day carrying a scarf. Fall is where it always was.

Uncompliant weather patterns be darned. Autumn will always be, and where it lives best is in the heart. The memory. The tradition, the commemoration. This year, I’m taking back my fall, and I’m starting it early. Slowly easing in, and savoring every moment.

I don’t want to rush the end of summer. In fact, I still have a few adventures left in me this year. But I’m ready to face the start of fall even if it isn’t ready for me.

With a simple reminiscence, I’m back there. In the old station wagon, puttering along the twisted lane. Burnt-orange leaves releasing their grasp in the wind of our wake. The window half down – as far as back seats would allow those days before the plastic crank hit the end of its travel. The sleeve of my wool coat flapping as I cup my hand and surf the waves of the oncoming fall breeze. I know where we’re going tonight, and I know that the old green thermos on the seat next to my brother’s booster is full of rich, creamy chocolate decadence. The home-knit beanie from grandma atop the heavy grey blanket that starts the night as a seat pad and ends as necessary wrap. I see the trees breaking as we pull onto the main road on the other side of the woods. I can feel the bounce of the old wooden bleachers; hear the stomping of the feet.

This is how I want fall served this year. Slow and steady, one game at a time. Hoping that the feeling never ends, or at least goes on until mid-November quarterfinals.

And so you might just see me next month, wearing a flannel in 80-degree weather. Following on a week later with mittens and coco even though I’m starting to sweat.

If fall won’t come find me anymore, I’m setting out to find fall.

Maybe I should just give in to the pumpkin spice. This year, I think I will.