Summer season of 2009 is now behind us and the kids are back in school again.  Fall has arrived and Halloween will be here before you know it. 

I publish these pages each year as my way of getting into the Fall-Halloween spirit; sharing some of my memories of the  season and of our family's Halloweens past. 

To those who chance upon my Fall &
Halloween pages, I bid a hearty welcome. 
I hope you enjoy your visit here.

 
     Since I was a little kid, fall season was always been a magical time for me.  When I was still in grade and high school, by the time summer was halfway over I was already anxiously anticipating the arrival of fall, the beautiful weather (even if short-lived in Chicago where I grew up), and the start of the football season.  Of course everything has a down side and for me, it was that it also coincided with the start of school . 

     An adult now (my wife might take some exception to "adult" from time to time ), it remains my favorite season; the weather (here in northern Virginia, anyway) is just about perfect for my taste; reasonably warm days and pleasantly cool nights.  I love that early morning and late evening crispness in the air and the bright colors as the foliage begins to turn.....and now I don't have to worry about the start of school!

     One of the fall rituals I vividly remember as a kid in Chicago was raking the leaves.  Not that raking leaves was, in itself, all that wonderful; it was that my Dad made it fun.  I may have been the only kid in my neighborhood who actually enjoyed raking leaves.  We had 10-12 Oak and Maple trees on our property, along with a Tulip tree which had huge leaves, and my dad and I usually did that chore together on Saturday afternoons.  More often than not, as soon as we got them raked into a pile I'd jump in them and throw them all around.  My dad would always laugh but then he gave me the job of raking them back into a pile second time on my own. 

     The leaf pile attraction must be hereditary as all three of our daughters did the same thing when they were kids. 

The pictures at left and below right were taken in Sep 1975 when we were living in suburban Chicago; Denise and Brandy playing in the leaf pile I'd just raked up. 

In the shot at left, Caroline is jumping into a pile of leaves in our yard in Virginia in the late 1980s.  

     And the tradition continues.  On a beautiful late fall day in 2002 I was doing some yard work.  It was 10 November, the anniversary of the creation of my beloved Marine Corps, and Hil and I were meeting a Marine buddy that evening for dinner and a couple beers to celebrate.  Since I'd taken the day off, I was catching up on a couple chores before getting ready to go meet Larry. 

     After raking the leaves into a pile in the side yard, I had gone around to the back to rake the leaves there.  Within about 10 minutes I heard laughing and squealing from the side yard and I went to see what was going on.  When I got there, I found that my oldest daughter and my grandchildren had come over for a visit.  Cameron and Sydney had made a bee-line for the leaf pile where they were rolling around in it, giggling, and throwing leaves at each other under their mother's supervision .  

     The picture at right shows Denise with her children, Cameron and Sydney, playing in the leaf pile I'd just raked in our yard on 10 Nov 02