“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” – L.M. Montgomery

 I love this time of year! I love the crispness in the air, the change in the light, the fiery colors of the trees, and spicy scent of Autumn! Nothing brings me back to my childhood like the smell of Fall.

I have such fond memories of my early childhood. And for some reason, most of them were during the cooler weather. Hot lunch weather! I grew up in a tiny town in Southwest Montana. Melrose, Montana. Population of 90, in a good year! When I lived there it was booming compared to today. We had as many children in one grade as the whole school (K-8) currently has! It was a 3 room school house, but we only used 2 of them. And we had a big room on the end that housed a library and was used for activities like playing Duck, Duck, Goose! Every morning a group was selected to go put up the flag, and they would go take it town at the end of every school day. We said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, and a couple times a year we would get Hot Lunch!

Separate, but adjacent to the school, was the auditorium. It had a small kitchen area and one large seating area with a stage on one end. The Mothers Club was alive and well back then, and they would put on a Hot Lunch periodically. Usually when the weather got cooler. It basically was a pot luck lunch put on for the kids. All the mothers (and grandmothers, and aunts, and anyone else in town who wanted to) would participate in some way; with bringing dishes, cooking, cleaning, setup/takedown…etc. The auditorium would be set up with tables and chairs, and there would be a buffet line to get food. I loved Hot Lunch days! Not only because of the lunch, but because we got a longer recess after!

Fall always played host to other fun things as well. Like craft bazaars! To this day, spicy scents still remind me of the Bazaar in Melrose! The ladies in the area were so crafty! They would come with the most unique treasures, nearly all of them handmade! There were homemade candles set in mason jars, little plastic canvas critters where you squeeze their cheeks and get the Hershey’s Kiss that is waiting inside, crocheted Christmas ornaments, Macramé dolls, beaded headdresses, and a hundred other amazing items! And the Bazaar always smelled of spice and cider! I LOVED going to the Bazaar! And I hated hot apple cider! Ha!

I really miss those days. Simpler days. Before video games and apps that help you keep up with housework. When neighbors knew each other and spent time together. When kids played outside and rode bikes down the street. I live in a neighborhood full of kids, but rarely see any of them. I want to live in an area where I can hear kids out playing from my open window. Where neighbor’s get together and chat. When people actually came to your house just to visit. When the doorbell would ring for more than just someone trying to sell something. I want to sit on the front porch with my coffee and watch the neighborhood kids do bike races and play in the leaves. Do places like that even exist anymore? Is that time just long past, never to return?

I always thought I was born in the wrong generation. I long for the days of yesteryear. I want to live inside a Terry Redlin painting or a Norman Rockwell print! And this time of year makes me yearn for it like no other. Oh how I wish time could reverse and we could just live the good ole days over and over! I hope that is what heaven is like….it is what you want  it to be. So for me, it will be Melrose in the fall of the early 1980’s!

Terry Redlin- Autumn Evening