Autumn

When I was in Portland I bought a book at the Worlds Biggest bookstore. Neil Gaiman's story, “October in the Chair” reminded me of this old story about bonfires and sweaters, and what a wonderful thing Autumn is.
"“It’s fine,” said October. His beard was all colors, a grove of trees in autumn, deep brown and fire-orange and wine-red, an untrimmed tangle across the lower half of his face. His cheeks were apple-red. He looked like a friend; like someone you had known all your life. “September can go first. Let’s just get it rolling.”



Maybe it’s still a little too soon to talk about the old High School Bonfires at Bedford Boys Ranch that they don’t have anymore.
Oh, what the hell, its past Labor Day, dove season has kicked in and the Cowboys haven't officially started to suck, quite. And I hear a cold front is coming, wind from the north, though not soon enough.
I remember going bumpity-bump down the single-laned deeply potholed Forest Ridge with a crew of guys hanging out the back and sides of a 1958 Cherokee Pick-up, gathering wood, and taking it up to the Boys Ranch and adding to the pile there, making ready for Thursday night. Thursday night of Homecoming week and the annual Homecoming Bonfire.
It made you feel like you were doing something important, gathering all that wood from dilapidated old horse stalls and outhouses along Glade Road, and down Cheek-Sparger when there was nothing there, scavenging from old brush piles and working old fence posts out of the ground.
Then there was that big ol’ barn that used to be at the end of Bedford Road, just past the Artesian Well. That barn was huge, and there was enough wood there that it had supplied bonfires for a generation. Every year, planks came up missing, I imagine, and every year some poor old farmer tacked some new ones up to be replaced the next year when the next bonfire would take place.
And unless some joker torched the huge pile of wood into flames a day early on Wednesday (which was always prone to happen), then on Thursday night you could watch the first fall sweaters come out in the cool October air, beautiful in the light of the Homecoming Bonfire.