Karen’s Corner

By Karen Barkstrom

Last week, as Mike and I headed out for our evening walk around the neighborhood, I took a deep breath and said, “Oh, do you smell that?”

“Someone’s burning leaves,” said Mike.

And it hit me.

It’s October. It’s fall. It’s my favorite time of year.

I think it goes way back to growing up in Niles, Illinois. Summers were brutal — temperatures in the mid-90s and humidity close to the same. Of course that didn’t stop us kids from playing outside, riding our bikes, climbing trees, staying out until the streetlights came on — but it was always hot.

I remember it being so hot at night that it was almost impossible to sleep. I’d put my pillow in my bedroom window to try to get it to cool off — dumb idea, I know, but I was just a kid.

Then along came fall: sunny, crisp days, and nights that were the perfect temperature for sleeping.

And the best part was when the leaves would turn color and fall off the trees. My friends and I would rake all the leaves in our front yard into a pile and then make an outline of “our house” — usually a ranch-style house with a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen, living room and rec room. We’d bring our dolls out and play house for hours.

And it didn’t matter if the wind came along at night and destroyed our “house,” ’cause the next day we’d just build another one — maybe bigger, maybe smaller, but large enough for all of us and our “kids.”

When we got tired of building leaf houses, we’d rake all the leaves into the gutter in the street. We’d often end up with a pile about 5 feet wide and 2 to 3 feet deep, and we’d take turns running and jumping into the pile. So crazy and so fun!

And then would come the best part: burning the pile of leaves. Of course we’d have to wait for an adult to supervise, but it was kind of a neighborhood tradition — everyone gathered out in the street and set the leaves ablaze. The neighborhood would light up, and the smell was incredible.

The smell of burning leaves is one of the few things I really miss about living in the Midwest. (The other two being amazing thunderstorms and catching lightning bugs in the backyard.)

But in my opinion there is no discussion about fall without mentioning football.

My yearlong calendar has only two seasons: football season and waiting for football season to start. I’m not a fan of baseball, basketball, hockey or soccer, although I did attend a lot of soccer games and a few fast-pitch ballgames when the kids were playing for the high school teams. But football … that’s a different story.

High school, college or NFL, it doesn’t matter — I’ll watch the game.

My football addiction has its beginnings in the 1950s. We would travel from Niles to Lorain, Ohio, every Thanksgiving and Christmas to spend time with my mom’s family. My mom’s sister, Aunt Bessie, and her husband, Uncle Art, didn’t have any children, but Uncle Art enjoyed spoiling my brother and me. He loved to wrestle with us on the living room floor, much to the chagrin of Aunt Bessie and my Grandma. And he was great at telling us ghost stories when tucking us into bed each night.

I idolized Uncle Art, so when he sat down to watch football I was right there with him on the couch. Usually it was just the two of us. Mom and Aunt Bessie would be in the kitchen, cooking with their mom. Dad would be off somewhere quiet, reading his copy of Scientific American, TAPPI (the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry magazine) or Reader’s Digest.

I’m not sure where my brother was all this time, but he’s four years older than me and used to drive me crazy, so I was happy he was elsewhere!

So it was just Uncle Art and me. He was a big fan of the Cleveland Browns and the New York Giants. And he was as patient as could be explaining the game to me: What does “first and 10” mean? What exactly is “offsides”? How do you know if it’s holding or not? By the time I was 8, Uncle Art and I could have some pretty in-depth discussions about the finer points of football.

To this day, at least once during a weekend full of watching football, I will think of Uncle Art and say a little prayer thanking him for taking the time to help this little girl understand what in the heck was going on with those 22 players on the field.

It’s fall. I can crunch all the leaves I want to when I take my evening walks. I will soak up all the crisp, bright days we get for the next couple of weeks or so. I will enjoy my pumpkin spice chai tea. And I will be yelling “Go Cougs,” “Go Hawks” and even “Go Huskies” (as long as they’re not playing the Cougs).

It’s fall, the best time of the year.

Karen Barkstrom, The Daily World’s editorial assistant, can be reached at 360-537-3925 or kbarkstrom@thedailyworld.com.