October in Gold

There has never been a time when I didn’t love the fall of the year. Never liking the Heartland summer heat, it was always a relief to breathe the crisp air flowing down from the True North in Canada and kick crisp leaves where they accumulated in the yard.

When I began elementary school in earnest after the first grade in an urban school, riding a school bus became a daily routine that lasted for eight straight years. Riding the bus was both good and bad. In the morning I dreaded its arrival in front of our house because it signaled the beginning of the day’s regimentation and rules. In the afternoon it was the ticket home, another day’s school drudgery just another fading memory.