Temperatures top out daily in the 80s here in south Louisiana. Leaves remain green. I’ve run the home and car A/C this week, multiple times.
Yet in our Louisiana way, fall has come.
That’s no judgment. Life has taken me to multiple regions of our great expanse, teaching this: Seasons are about relative weather.
The Pacific Northwest, where I grew up, mostly misses turning leaves. Clouds appear, low and gray, and spit endless mist. But hemlock and Douglas fir trees wear green all year. Fall is the warmer gray wetness before the chillier gray wetness of winter.
In the Great Plains and Midwest, fall brings color – and relief from summer heat. The chill, first at night and then into daylight, provides physical and psychic preparation for the stark winter to come.
In Louisiana, where late spring and summer bring months of temps (degrees) and humidity (percentages) in the 90s, any day in the twin 80s feels like fall. The 70s are a blessing. Come the 60s, we’re aching. Any lower, and we complain.
So, our fall has come. For sure.
Seasons at 30-Second Read
A cockamamie scheme for winter
In the land of sweating turnips
