Amherst Blog In The 'Cac Lifestyle Opinion The 'Cac

Autumn is Coming, Hopefully

My friends can’t understand why I want the weather to change.  As they pull on coats, I frolic about in a t-shirt claiming, ‘This is just like summer in San Francisco!’

Summer is great.  Conceptually, it’s a time of freedom, a time for going to county fairs, swimming in lakes, and eating soft-serve ice cream.  In practice though, especially in Massachusetts, I find that summer is great in spite of everything we think it to be.  Small children vom on the tilt-a-whirl.  Lakes are really weedy.  Soft-serve ice cream leads to sticky hands and bee stings.

And it’s humid for much of the time.

Perhaps I’m being whiny – Washington DC is certainly fouler in the summer months – but when I think of September I think of fall.  And when I think of fall, I think of the most perfect, comfortingly cold weather.

 

Here are my reasons:

- Practically speaking: I only brought three pairs of shorts with me to school this year.  Laundry = money + time.

- Crunchy leaves, hot cider, apple-picking.

- Pumpkin flavored baked goods and beverages.

- Sweaters, even the really thick, striped old-man one that my mother dislikes.

- Scarves – it’s not like I learned to knit for nothing.

- One appreciates the sunlight more when it’s cold outside.  The sky seems sharper and more blue.

- It’s much more fun to root for your school on Homecoming if one doesn’t have to worry about Eastern Equine Encephalitis/West Nile.

- Putting on the ‘booze jacket’ when leaving a pre-game.

 

None of these are solid reasons.  They’re entirely subjective – some of you may not even like pumpkin-flavored goods.

Nonetheless, the weather is surely changing.  I procrastinate by watching the squirrels scamper around the grassy quads in search of food.  Today, I’m carrying around my faithful, should-be-’Cac-standard-issue North Face.

My Bean boots are waiting.

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