Growing up in the countryside in New York, fall was my favorite season. We had fantastic views of surrounding mountains clear to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. From our yard, I could see the autumnal quilt fill in with yellows, reds and oranges. Cool evenings made walks around the block more pleasant and I liked the smell of smoke from neighbor’s chimneys.
Walks in the woods became richer with the scent of, and this is where I get stuck. I searched a bit for the name of that smell. Rotting, wet leaves? It doesn’t sound good. The popular aromas of fall are pumpkin and cinnamon. Those are lovely, but the earthy, deep woods, leaves becoming soil again is a scent that I enjoy, at least at a distance of my nose from the path.
When I lived in Maine, for three, glorious summers and worked in a restaurant in a seaside town, fall brought the leaf peepers. It was our derogatory term for the tourists bussed in to see the changing of the leaves.
We would have a few tables on a Saturday around 11:00am and Bam! A good twenty to thirty people, mostly older, would stream in and fill up half the dining room and want separate checks, with special orders on the lowest priced items. They were picky and demanding, often didn’t tip well and the rush would slow down the kitchen’s flow.
I admire the experience that my elders have. Elizabeth Kapu’uwailani Lindsey said, “When an elder dies, a library is burned: vast sums of wisdom and knowledge are lost.” I whole-heartedly agree with her wise words, I do however, when I’m older, hope to understand impatient servers like the one I was.
Many years later, and still enjoying my escape from city life, I am loving the change in seasons and embracing fall. One of the best places we know of so far, to see the leaves, is nearby Glade Top Trail with 23 miles of vistas on both sides of the trail. We were lucky enough to have a friend join us to share the day.
The temperature held steady in the mid-seventies, so we were able to pull off the trail and take little walks, like one down to a leafy pond and another looking across valleys to other mountains near and far. We saw “evidence” of horse back riding and parties of parked trucks with trailers, signs of the side-by-sides brought in to enjoy the low traffic trail.
A few lucky people live up on Glade Top and at one residence, a little sign posted by the trail let passers-by know they had farm fresh eggs for sale. At $2.00 a dozen, our guest bought 11 dozen, gifting a dozen to us and trying to figure out who would receive the rest. The seller was happy about the business, and we were glad to meet another nice Ozarkian.
While taking in the views, we had a discussion about the purple paint used to mark private property. The Glade Top Trail is in the Mark Twain National Forrest and open to the public, but there are private properties scattered all along it’s way. I didn’t remember any purple in the woods when I was a kid and thought it was relatively new. One theory in our vehicle was people adopted it from social media. After researching, I found an article by Francis Skalicky entitled “In Missouri, Heed the Purple Paint Law” that explains its origins.
Noting that there was still a fair amount of green leaves, it was suggested that we may have another week or two of the leaf show left, but the warm weather was a gift for walking and picture taking. Anticipating a hay ride at the neighbor’s in the evening, we headed home.
I am old enough to know that it’s probably inevitable that I am becoming a leaf peeper. We stopped for breakfast at the Railway Cafe in Norwood, on the way to see the leaves. The owners/cook/waitstaff chatted with locals in the small establishment.
At one point the waiter asked how I was doing and I confessed that I was listening to the conversation and apologized. He told me not to worry, that if I was there, I was family. One more confession: I asked to substitute pepper-jack cheese for cheddar in my omelette. It’s happening.