As I mentioned on the previous page, I love the beautiful color that come with the changing of the foliage in the fall.  In Chicago, it was usually in full swing by early September and leaves actually began falling in mid-late August. 

     Here in Virginia, however, the foliage normally doesn't start to turn in earnest until very late September or early October and you can still find leaves on the trees as late as mid November some years.  To me, the colors here in Virginia just seem more vivid than I remember them back in Chicago.

     The smell of the burning leaves is another of those pleasant childhood fall memories etched in my memory.  I remember the smell wafting through the entire neighborhood on weekend afternoons and evenings as everyone raked and burned their leaves....there were no prohibitions then.    

     As I mentioned on the previous page, my Dad and I raked them in the afternoon but he always waited until dusk or just after to burn them as he knew I enjoyed it that much more after dark.  I loved that acrid-sweet smell.  However, getting a concentrated dose of smoke in the face when the wind suddenly changed was not quite so pleasant as my eyes burned and watered for a couple moments . 

     Sometimes it seemed, no matter where you stood, the wind would change in order to blow the smoke in your face.  I also remember that my front was always toasty warm while my back got chilled from the cool night air.   

     When we moved to southern Mississippi in 1980 we had over 50 trees on our property and most were hardwoods.  This meant there was never a shortage of leaves to rake in the fall.  While I raked them myself, our daughters were all still young enough to get the same kick out of burning leaves that I'd gotten so many years earlier and we often conducted the leaf burning ritual together. 

     When we moved to Hawaii in 1984, the only tree in our ward was a 10 foot tall Gardenia in front of the house.  Also, with the warmer climate, the leaves didn't fall as predominantly as they do on the mainland and I don't remember seeing any color change in them.  After moving from Hawaii to northern Virginia in 1987, I discovered to my major disappointment that, while there were plenty of trees on our property, there was a prohibition against burning leaves. 

     When we left Virginia for South Carolina in 1991, I was happy to find no such prohibition on leaf burning.  Unfortunately, by this time, Denise was no longer living with us and both Brandy and Carrie were too "grown up" and "too busy" to participate anymore.  Even so, I would still burn an occasional  small pile of leaves just for nostalgic reasons. 

     Now that we're back in northern Virginia again, leaf burning is still prohibited and I feel a bit sad that my grandchildren will miss the experience.  Environmental protection is the stated reason for the ban but, while factories still throw millions of tons of pollutants into the air each year, you can get a citation for burning a little pile of leaves.  Go figure!  That said, I still occasionally put a small pile of leaves together on an Autumn Saturday and burn them for the grandkids.  I figure I'll stop doing that when the government stops all those major industrial polluters .