Fall arrived overnight in our little corner of the world. One day it was eighty-five degrees and the beaches at Deland Park and King Park were crowded with kids enjoying their last few days of summer vacation, and the next day -- literally the next day -- it was sixty degrees, rainy, and windy, and the beaches were deserted. All afternoon, the "A Rather Blustery Day" song from Winnie the Pooh played itself in my head.
When I look out my window today (which is closed, because the cool breeze is chilly), I see green leaves shriveling, hints of orange and brown at their curled edges. A few have already dropped to the ground, gold scattered against bright green.
That color combination is another sign of fall around these parts. The Green & Gold (that's what we call the Packers) is on TV every weekend playing pre-season games, and it won't be long before the scores are for real and the men in the corner bars talk about the likelihood (or not) of a Green Bay Super Bowl.
As for us Stoneboaters, the most palpable signs of fall are probably the ones on our campus, Lakeland College. Students walk the sidewalks, sit attentively* before green blackboards in basement classrooms, congregate in the cafeteria. We gathered for the opening convocation this week and heard our president's familiar annual message: "Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of this place." We'll try.
It won't be long before we are sipping hot chocolate and keeping vigil for those first snowflakes. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves -- The Weather Channel says it's supposed to be eighty degrees again tomorrow. Maybe these past few days were just a fall preview, or maybe what's to come is Indian Summer. It's all semantics, right? A different point of view? Either way, it means that the debut issue of Stoneboat is just around the corner.
*That probably won't last for long.
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