Don’t you love the way they smell? Is it more of a musty or a dusty smell? Or is it just the memories of blue sky, crisp air and being at peace with the earth? Throwing great fistfuls of them into the air and leaping into a pile are some of life’s great joys. Even if your pushing fifty instead of five.Short work with a rake and we had a fresh palette of harvest wheat, yellow ochre, brick red, burnt sienna, and dying green colors at our curb. I love the fall. Especially fall in Laurel.
The leaves are three quarters down in Oldtown. Only the oak trees have nearly full crowns. My neighbor Eric’s oak tree slowly drops its brown, crinkly leaves all winter. A hopeful installment plan to guarantee our next spring.
We have a sixty-five foot dawn redwood tree that is the last to drop its leaves in our yard. It's a very confused, deciduous-evergreen tree. It always drops its needles during Thanksgiving week. For nineteen years, I’ve raked mounds of needles in the morning while waiting for Joanne to finish our turkey feast. The picture on the right is how our redwood looks this afternoon.
Eleven geese just flew over the tree tops of the alley between Laurel and Montgomery Streets. It looks like they're heading for the Patuxent River. Their V pattern is almost as perfect as their honking.
I always want to live in a place that has four seasons. I hope Heaven has a fall as wonderful as Laurel’s.
I always want to live in a place that has four seasons. I hope Heaven has a fall as wonderful as Laurel’s.
UPDATE 1 - I forgot mention above that Laurel's Public Works Department will vacuum up leaves from your curb for free. Oldtown residents living west of 7th Street have their weekly pickup on Tuesdays and east of 7th Street addresses are scheduled on Thursdays. Here are Laurel City's leaf pickup schedule map and the leaf pickup instructions.
4 comments:
Nice essay, Rick. You really captured what we all feel in the fall, my favorite time of year.
A lovely and colorful ode to our Tree City USA.
Mike McLaughlin
Thanks. I can't wait for the first winter storm. I'm scouting for new places to abandon my car early this year.
Rick, you said it perfectly. I was driving to work last Thursday on Route 216 with my mind going in a thousand different directions. All of a sudden, I realized what a beautiful morning it was. It was 7AM, 65 degrees, the sky was purple and pink, the trees were absolutely vibrant with color. Every year when the leaves fall, I think of that October, when I went next door to 509 Prince George Street. I was about 9 years old. There was a big maple tree in the Wossowski's front yard. I was playing in the huge pile of leaves when I realized I had lost my mother's ring that I had "borrowed" from her jewelry box. We spent a lot of time looking in that pile of leaves but never found the ring. Maybe it's waiting for me to come play in the leaves again!
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