Falling leaves

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

When my kids were little, we tried to avoid it, but eventually they stumbled upon Barney the Dinosaur. If you’ve somehow managed to avoid Barney & Friends (or somehow managed to repress memories of the show), Barney was a big purple dinosaur who hung out with kids on TV and they sang songs and learned life lessons together. Even if you’ve never seen the show at all, you’ve no doubt heard some version of the theme song… “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family…” to the tune of the classic kids’ song “This Old Man.”

Barney, it would seem, had a song for pretty much everything, from brushing your teeth to cleaning the house to sharing your toys. And one of Barney’s sugary-sweet was all about this time of year, when the leaves begin to change and it becomes time to get the sweaters out of the closet as the weather changes.

See VIEWPOINT, page A6 VIEWPOINT

From page A4

I don’t know what the actual name of the song was, but the chorus went, “You can call it Fall if that’s what you please, but I say I like Autumn.”

I guess the point of the song was to teach kids about the seasons and that we, for some reason, have two names for Fall/Autumn — and literally no other seasons.

But I heard that song enough before my kids got older and moved onto Pokemon and Spongebob Squarepants that virtually anytime I hear anything about Fall, that song gets stuck in my head for a little while.

And the truth is, Fall is my least favorite season. It’s usually pretty rainy (although not this year, so far), it always means the end of Daylight Saving Time, and the temperatures start to drop, meaning I have to shift away from the standard shotts-and-tank-top ensemble I’ve been rocking for the last six months.

Then, of course, there are all the falling leaves, which as the owner of several large trees, is a thing I’ll be dealing with for the next few months — raking, blowing, bagging.

Did Marion get their leafsucking thing fixed? I hope so…

I did see a funny thing on the intenet recently thought. It went like this…

European: We call it “Autumn” because of the Autumnal Equinox. American: We call it “Fall” because leaf fall down.

It does, indeed, my friend.