When October goes

Shopper-News columnist Lynn Hutton filed a great column this week, her annual ode to autumn. It can be found here through Sunday (Nov. 6) and then archived here on Page A-7.

Lynn's piece, awesome and eloquent as always, got me to thinking how much I, too, hate to see October go.

Fall is fun, filled with football and falling leaves. Days are usually mild; nights are nicely nippy.

This month has been a bit of a whirlwind for us, roaring in like March's lion (or, if you will, like a luau) on our honeymoon in Hawaii, and ending more like a lamb, quietly, at home. Jennifer didn't feel well last night, so we canceled our Halloween plans. She stayed in bed much of the evening while I indulged myself in my favorite guilty pleasure from the '60s, the campy ABC daytime drama, "Dark Shadows." ("How can you kill a man who's already dead?")

We saw spectacular fall colors over the weekend at the lake, filled with gold and brown and blue, better than what Jennifer says she saw with her grandparents in the Great Smokies a week ago.

Now we creep toward the holidays, which, sadly, have become anxiety-ridden endurance contests. Dreary, gray winter days are soon to follow, that three-month misery when the sky won't snow and the sun won't shine. I've already told you about losing baseball until the spring.

So forgive me if I hum a few bars of Johnny Mercer by way of Barry Manilow today.

Oh, how I hate to see October go...