Let the leaves fall where they may

I am not going to argue climate change. I believe it is happening. I just want to know how much of it is actually man made and how much of it is Mother Nature as we spin and tilt through the universe.

One of the top three reasons why I like to live in Iowa is either on your wall or desk. It’s called the month of October. This is my favorite month in this state because Iowa has all the traditional looks and feels of fall. People in Hawaii don’t know what they are missing. But, then again, we can long for Hawaii when it’s -13 in February here.

The best fall and October I can remember was 19 years ago.

The weather days before the birth of my second child was beyond perfect. It had every thing I wanted for a fall day; the crunch of leaves under foot; the long shadows cast in the afternoon. You needed a jacket when outside in the evening. Maybe it was all tied to the emotion of waiting to be a father for a second time, but I still think if it was not for having a child, I still would have remembered the weather that week that year. That month defined fall for me for the rest of my life.

I grew up in eastern Colorado (so far east you couldn’t see the mountains) and still have memories of its erratic weather as a kid. Heavy snow the day before Thanksgiving delayed a visit by my grandparents. That’s not a big deal since snow is fair game in November. But what happened the rest of the year that made the unpredictable predictable. During my seventh-grade year, I scooped snow during halftime of a college football game on TV....in mid September. It was the same weekend the annual, outdoor craft show was moved underneath the grandstands at the fairgrounds.

January days reaching the 60s did happen in Colorado as it was a nice break from typical winter weather, whenever that decided to happen. A story I had at my first paper in Colorado after college was a snow day for the school on May 1. The snow didn’t pile up in inches, but it was wet enough to make the dirt, county roads a mess and the district didn’t want to risk the buses.

That is erratic. But if you grow up with it, you learn to live with it all.

Sure, there has been cold and snow in Iowa in April. The phrase that goes something like, “If you don’t like the weather in (state goes here), just wait 10 minutes,” can probably be said in a majority of the country. That is also why I don’t like the phrase anymore since it’s not exclusive to one area. One Christmas afternoon on the Great Plains was nice enough to only need a sweatshirt to shoot baskets at the neighborhood park. The next year a New Year’s Eve party was cancelled because of 18 inches of snow. So maybe you have to wait more than 10 minutes.

Colorado high school baseball is played in the spring meaning chances are pretty good you will be swinging for coffee as kids swing bats in 45 degree early April afternoons. Softball is a fall sport. That’s why I hope Iowa continues to play high school ball in the summer. You only have to worry about rain.

Maybe I’m too traditional with weather. But that is why I like October here. I’ve read stories of people who remember being a kid in some of the 1930s Iowa summers. The heat and humidity was just as bad at 2 a.m. as it was the previous 2 p.m. Families would sleep, or at least lie down, outside on the front porch with the hopes of feeling a breeze that was not in the house. Maybe that is having too much of traditional summer weather. That was almost 100 years ago, long before the climate change era.

We still have not had a frost here and it seems a little late since it’s Oct. 19. I’m sure that day will come. Many of the trees still have much of their leaves with minimal color change. Is that another sign of climate change? I don’t know. I do know I like this month and that won’t change with me.