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January 2025

The Seasons, Autumn and Winter

By LuCinda Haagenson

I have always enjoyed autumn.  After a hot summer, the cooler weather is a welcome delight.  In upstate New York this meant wearing a light weight jacket and raking leaves.  I still love the smell of the dry fall leaves and the colors!  Such glorious colors!  I remember my brother, sister and I raking huge piles, just to run and jump in them.  I have traveled back to New Your many times.  I usually go in the fall to get my memories revived of the beautiful colors.

            As a child, the best day ever was on a day when we would wake up and see new snow on the ground.  It was so beautiful glistening in the sunlight!  It looked like a magical world!  We didn’t even want breakfast, but to hurry into our snow clothes, boots, hats and gloves.  Mom insisted we had to have breakfast.  We were the first to put our footprints in the snow, listening to the crunch.  It was some unexplained kind of thrill.  It was so exciting to discover how the snow had changed how everything looked.  A wire fence that had been ordinary and ugly was now transformed, with snow resting on the edge of each wire, into something beautiful like lace.  Trees that had looked naked after dropping their leaves, now looked like they had a white fur coat.  Buildings had icicles hanging from the edge looking like icing on a cake.  We always tasted them, pretending how delicious they tasted.  The snow made everything so clean and quiet.  After we explored our entire world (our and our neighbor’s farms), it was time to go in for lunch and get warmed up.  After lunch, back out in the snow, we made snow angels, snowmen and forts for snowball fights.

            One spring, my brother came home from the Army to celebrate Mom’s birthday, April 8^th.  We had a light slushy snow.  It was very unusual to have snow so late.  My brother helped us make a totem pole.  It was a special day.

            In the fall of 1962 my parents decided it was time to leave New York and move to California.  The most beautiful farewell to the winter snow came as a delightful surprise as I was visiting my cousin to say goodbye.  We were out walking in her neighborhood when it started snowing, big, beautiful, fluffy snowflakes; the kind that stuck to our face and eyelashes.  It was a sight that I have never forgotten.