2010-10-13 - 6:49 p.m.
Sometimes, the seasons are how they told you they'd be. Today, riding across this campus on the way to the Fine Arts building, I noticed the trees had finally started turning into yellows and oranges. The air, in my face, had a bite, so I zipped up my jacket all the way, up around my throat. The leaves crunched underneath and, as I climbed past the new student center building, I heard the stuttery, fast-fast-fast drums that sound like my high school marching band.
It's not supposed to be like that here. This isn't that kind of college. There's no football team, no real homecoming, not even real-deal keg parties. There is tasteful drinking on the weekends, after papers are written. There is organic chemistry here. There is a very good chess team made up of Russians with difficult last names. But, as I climbed the hill, I saw girls throwing frisbees, boys throwing a lacrosse ball back and forth, and then I saw the drummers long after I heard them, drumming in unison, looking very much like a high school band that had something for which to cheer. And then I saw what they were gathering around. It was a mountain of pallets, piled on top of each other like a hundred broken giant wooden dentures. I knew what it was right away. There will be a bonfire, and the boys and girls will gather around, because it's the fall and it's America and though there's no football team, there's the chess guys or a soccer team, or something, and they're going to do their best to be fall as it's supposed to be.
Autumn keeps on going, the leaves falling, but the bonfire people don't care about all that dying, all that rolling-around-in-bed before the big sleep. For them, it's just fall, not autumn, and when it's fall, you burn wood, you drink cider, and you cheer. They're bright and pretty in their black-and-gold hooded sweatshirts that say, "Go Retrievers!" They're wearing a smile, never wondering why, and I think I love them for that.
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