The Fall Guy

I once asked an American person I knew why they called all the other seasons by the same names as us, but decided to call autumn the fall instead.

“The answer was simple,” she said, “it is the time of the year that the leaves fall off the tree so it’s called the fall.”

Umm, I thought to myself. That’s just stoopid.

I mean if you were to follow that logic through why would you not call spring ‘the bud,’ or summer ‘the stifling heat time when you need the air conditioning on,’ or something else catchy like that.

Still, I couldn’t help thinking about ‘the fall’ this week as I looked out at the bare branches of the beech tree in my garden.

I love that tree. Every season it has a different look to it and it is simply spectacular. It’s huge, but it’s spectacular.

That doesn’t mean that every once in a while I can’t curse it. That usually happens in autumn.

In autumn, in case you are not American and don’t know this because you can’t get a clue from the name, the leaves fall from the trees.

Not all the trees, but the ones that books tell us lose their leaves in winter.

Even though we know they’ve already lost them in the autumn.

And when they start to fall we suddenly realise how many of the damn things were up there on those branches in the first place.

Most of the leaves have been down now for weeks now, but so far I have resisted the temptation to get out and rake them off the lawn or brush them off the ‘pad.’

I nearly used the word driveway there instead of ‘pad’ but I guess if I’m dissing the use of the word ‘fall’ I surely couldn’t use ‘driveway.’

Anyway the leaves have been falling...and so have the prices. Damn, I thought I was writing a piece for an advertising department again.

What was I saying again? Oh yeah, the leaves have been falling...and I have been patient.

I remember the first year I moved into the house and watched as the leaves swirled up into every wee corner, covered the lawn and stuffed the drainpipes and I thought I need to get out there and get this sorted.

And I did, but there were hundreds, nay thousands, more still on that damn tree and by the time I had finished a couple of hours of back breaking toil and had just stood back to admire my handiwork I noticed that the place was piling up again just as fast as I cleared them.

Now I am more patient. For a start if you don’t rush out and spend hours raking and brushing them away, some of them will be blown away.

Okay so you might be passing the problem on to your neighbours or the kindly folk who sweep the footpaths in our town, but you never know - they might need the exercise.

I’ve also discovered that a cleared lawn acts as some kind of a leaf magnet and even if there are no more leaves left on your own tree, leaves from trees all around seem to blow in and just lie on your grass.

There are disadvantages to this policy of course. If it rains and it has occasionally been known to rain in this part of the world, the leaves get wet and when they get wet they get slippery and when they get slippery you could fall. (Hey maybe that’s why they changed the name.)

Which is why, even though I like to hold off as long as I possibly can, there always comes a day no later than late November when I have to get out there with a rake, brush and big plastic bags in hand and as take as many of those damn leaves away as I possibly can for another year.

I thought about this too recently and tried to remember the last time my better half hauled herself outdoors to help with this annual chore. I couldn’t remember so I asked her why not.

“Oh it’s simple,” she said, “you’re the fall guy.”

And she’s not even American!