A longtime resident of Uxbridge, Ted Barris has written professionally for 40 years - for radio, television, magazines and newspapers. The "Barris Beat" column began in the 1950s when his father Alex wrote for the Globe and Mail. Ted continues the tradition of offering a positive view of his community. He has written 16 non-fiction books of Canadian history and teaches journalism at Centennial College in Toronto.
Don't hurry autumn
Don't hurry autumn
It didn't take long. The trees have just started to turn. Outside town the low spots each morning are full of that chilly mist. The sandals have pretty much been moved to the back of the closet along with many of my short-sleeved shirts. But I wasn't ready for this: I got a promotional circular from the place I usually take my car for oil changes.
“Get ready to winterize,” it said. “Cold weather's just around the corner.”
Winterize? Cold weather? Just a gosh-darn minute here. We haven't even had a crack at an autumn warm spell yet, and the system already has me hauling out my deep-treads and the emergency road survival kit. Yes, I'll admit that I've already got my hockey gear out. I've already played my first oldtimers game. But that may be more my instinctive anticipation of the likely cancellation of the NHL hockey season this year. More to the point, I think there's still plenty of autumn to soak up, before we get serious about snow tires and anti-freeze.
The fall pushes lots of hot buttons in my system, some of them nostalgic, others psychological in that they give me an inner sense that life is unfolding the way it should. Finally, the grass isn't growing as quickly anymore; that means less lawn cutting. Bugs are truly gone. The evening light has that golden glow you don't see any other time of the year. I don't know why, but the autumn air smells the freshest, the cleanest (even if it isn't.) Maybe it's partly the smell of those damp piles of leaves. Even though I don't relish the extra work in raking them, I do enjoy that earthy smell of fallen leaves. A friend of mine used to consciously break the municipal bylaws each autumn by burning a few piles of fallen leaves, just to take in that once-a-year smell.
And I guess it's the newshound in me, but I always associate this time of year with politics, whether it's the opening of the Parliament in Ottawa or this year the coming presidential election in the United States; since both my parents grew up in the U.S., it's an inherent reflex in me to watch the summer nominating conventions (the way my folks always did) and then soak up every speech, every gaff, every gotcha moment of the race for the White House right up to election night, the first Tuesday of November.
Autumn, it turns out, is also a time for celebrating birthdays in our extended family. Two of our grandchildren have birthdays in the fall. So does one of our daughters and a son-in-law and his father. (I spent a lot of time, Sunday, thinking of my late dad; he would have been 90 on Sept. 16 and he always loved the autumn and thought of it as his season). And then, of course, squeezed into the middle of all that birthday cake is Thanksgiving. And there's always a family get-together or two over that weekend. So as the colours and the outside air change each fall, our family has lots to celebrate and even more to be thankful for.
It's another quirk of mine, I guess, but I enjoy the fall for the prospect of encountering new books. Having written and published a few in my time, many of them in the fall leading up to Christmas, I look forward to the excitement of reading about, hearing about, and - since I get the privilege of interviewing some the country's best each year at Books and Authors (tonight) - engaging the latest new literature with the people who create it. Eyeing the bestsellers lists is an annual passion for me, like watching the World Series or the start of another (hope springs eternal) Leaf Stanley Cup run.
I think the real kicker, as far as season changing moments at our household, came over the weekend. My wife was doing some cleaning on the landing in the stairwell to the basement. She'd spotted some mouse droppings in the area and decided to vacuum. But she wasn't ready for what she found. As she cleaned along the ledge that led from the top step - where we generally place the cat's food - she came to a heavy wooden sign we had propped up along the ledge.
“You've got to see this,” she called out to me.
Behind the sign sat a pile of cat kibble. There must have been two or three cupfuls, all moved there by a mouse or mice. It's hard to know how long it had taken them (the sign's been leaning there for weeks,) but I'd say they'd stashed nearly a third of a bag of kibble there, one piece at a time. I don't know what the traditional harbingers of autumn are, but that mouse-made mountain of stockpiled cat food comes pretty close.
I guess it's the mouse equivalent of “winterizing.”
For other Barris Beat columns go to www.tedbarris.com
