Passing Fancy

Midwestern leaves, exhausted from dressing up every day for the gala event of Autumn, slip into soft brown dressing gowns and fall any which way into heaps and piles for their winter slumber.

The sun decides it has lavished enough radiance on us to last through next year. It grants a few gracious hours but transfers the bulk of its favors to another hemisphere that has impatiently waited its turn for light-drenched days.

Creatures that abandon the Midwest and follow the sun call anxiously to each other to hurry. Snow is coming! Hurry! Those animals required to stay spend waning days gathering food and fatness to themselves, driven by an uneasy urgency. Male deer, knowing that late fall will shed their enticing, entrancing antlers as ruthlessly as it sheds leaves from trees, parade in front of females, libido-impelled to ignore dangers of shotgun blasts and headlights.

The ground feels the warmth seep away, sparing only a bit for some hardy mums and asters. It steels itself to endure the crushing weight of tractors, rakes, and combines, hugging the knowledge that soon a comforter of snow will shield it from raw winds and ravaging machines and it can rest and recuperate till spring.

Then comes the wind. It bullies from branches the few leaves that were hoping festivities would resume. It shouts down the birds who spent the summer singing in the dawn until, recognizing an adversary with greater endurance and endless reserves, they give up altogether and are silent.

The glorious extravaganza of a Midwest autumn is over. It won’t celebrate again till next year. It retires to dream up the perfect date, theme and invitation list for Autumn 2012, and allows Fall to work out last minute details with Winter on the exact date the White and Ice Festivities will commence.

Don't let the long skirts fool you

Color-spattered hills and tangy temperatures aren't the only autumn delights.
We happened on a group from a Mennonite Church enjoying a rousing game of softball.
The little girl who made it to first base slugged the ball all the way to left field.

Batter up. Ready positions

Close play at first. The crowd goes wild.

SAFE! The pitcher tries to regroup,

and the outfield assumes the ready positions.

It doesn't get much better than this, folks.

Do you smell fall? Nope. I smell team spirit.

Toward the end of the summer season, but right before the fall season, football season begins.

In a display of fan solidarity and and team spirit, for a few brief weeks The Prude's home state

proudly dons the colors of our professional football team.

Can you guess what team that would be?

Wait just a minute. How did those last 2 get in there?

Blue and ORANGE??????

Must be from somewhere along the southern border, where da fans of da team that wears those colors lurk.

Happy first fall season weekend from the Prude and the Green and the Gold!

Tuesday Stew: Where did the Fifth Come From?

The Tuesday Stew once again will consist of a chopped up hunk of issue that irritates The Prude, thrown in a pot with some hyperbole, seasoned with crankiness, and offered up in a 300-some-word tureen.

The Prude disapproves of the 5^th of July.

Independence Day is the top of the Summer Rollercoaster.

We’ve spent the weeks since Memorial Day slowly climbing to the peak.

We savor long days, fresh air, gardens growing lush and green.

4^th of July weekend and we are at the top of summer! The crescendo! Our pulses beat fast with family and friends and fireworks and for a split second we are on top of Summer, All the vistas of picnics, vacations, farmer’s markets, boat rides, the zoo, the ballpark, and the pool spread out endlessly beneath us. We could perch up there forever.

And then we hit the 5^th.

The rollercoaster picks up speed no matter how we try to slow it down. Air that had been fresh on the way up becomes humid and oppressively hot. The days get shorter. The garden demands constant attention and so do the insects that infiltrate our homes and our

personal space. Faster and faster we head down, as School Supply Sales and Fall Fashion Forecasts flash by.

We try to slow the rush of August, some of us by closing our eyes and muttering prayers, others by throwing arms in the air to increase resistance.

Nothing works, and we realize we are going to crash right into Labor Day.

The dizzying ride of summer is over and we prepare to exit to our left, sweaty, limp and exhausted.

But what’s that?

The ride isn’t over?

It climbs again, and ahead we see fresh fall days, cool temperatures, bright leaves and a harvest of delights! And could that be the death rattle of billions of dying insects that greets our ears?

Hold on folks. 

What we thought was the Summer Rollercoaster is just part of the Thrill of the Seasons Superjumbo Ride.

Remind The Prude that the 5^th of July is just only one cog on that ride, to be savored along with the other 364.