Fall, another four letter word, sometimes gets a bad rap
By LUELLA DOW
Contributor
No wonder some people have a negative attitude toward fall, or autumn, as I like to refer to it. You should see my dictionary. It attributes more than half a page to fall.
Talk about a poor, maligned word. Fall is attributed to a “fall from grace,” to “a fall from a 20 foot ladder” to, “her face fell when she heard the bad news.” Now, I don't know how a face that's still attached to a body can actually fall, but who am I to argue with Mr. Webster?
One of my writing teachers told a room-full of students to never say, “Her eyes fell upon the ringing telephone,” or “the snake about to strike” or “the handsome man sitting in the back row.” Oh well, surely, in the case of the handsome man in the back row there could be an exception. However, if you're the one who has to pick up those wandering eyeballs gathering lint and cookie crumbs from the floor, and sponge off his ruined shirt…You don't need to shudder, I already did.
Now autumn, in my dictionary, takes up only an inch or so of space. It is defined simply as the season between summer and winter. Oh oh, the last line says, “The early stages of decline.” Let's just cut that one out of the page. Nobody will notice it's gone.
Nevertheless, (which is a word nobody ever uses these days), autumn is a beautiful time. Pumpkins turn bright orange. Choreographed black birds swoop and dive. Deer nibble the last of your strawberries. And you can hang up that callus-making hoe for a few months.
Autumn is when you sit beside the fire and read your copy of the Cheney Free Press. Let the rest of the world get humps in their backs from peering at the news through their computer screens. A local paper was meant to be enjoyed, not to be the cause of eye troubles.
Fall conjures up images of broken bones, embarrassments and humiliations. Autumn makes you want to hummmm. You choose.
Luella Dow is a Cheney-area author who can be reached at [email protected].
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