Flannel is the language of fall

Fall comes slowly and late to the Deep South.

My cayenne pepper plants produced ripe fruit and new blossoms last week. The shrub out front –I don’t know what it is – unfurled pink flowers this weekend. And I mowed in a t-shirt yesterday.

But fall has come. Acorns litter sidewalks and lawns. Trees are releasing their leaves. And my flannel shirts have, at last, crept out from the farthest, darkest corner of the closet.

Ah, fall and flannel. Just as grilled weenies signal summer and mittens mark winter, fall’s language is flannel. Soft, warm, comforting flannel.

I have six flannel shirts, all survivors from life elsewhere, each a token of memories from those elsewheres. I figure I’ll wear each three or four times this fall and….

I almost wrote “winter.” But our winter, like sunshine in tunnels, is theoretical. I’ll don flannel occasionally during our fall and faux winter and through our whisp of a blink of spring. Then comes summer, which of course scorns flannel.

Still, it’s fall now. And, today, I celebrate in the long-sleeved fullness of flannel.