-
Autumn Leaves
December 13, 2012 | 17 comments
-
Osceola Who?
May 29, 2012 | 34 comments
-
Touchy-Feely Football
April 4, 2012 | 54 comments
-
Guess What, Grandpa?!!
January 16, 2012 | 48 comments
-
Important to Decide
November 9, 2011 | 18 comments
The Nation's Pulse
Years Ago
It was probably unhealthful, the smoke from burning leaves.
KENSINGTON, Maryland — Before many of you were born, or moved east, the Eastern Seaboard would disappear at this time of year.
It was probably unhealthful. It was smoke from burning leaves. The motorized leaf-catcher was unknown. Raking leaves was a family affair, enjoyed by some, despised by many, but a necessity. If, after all, a summer of green canopies was to be enjoyed, there was a price.
From the air, the eastern limits of the United States began somewhere along the borders of the Midwestern States. Eastward was a light haze.
The memory returned the other day when the only leaf-catcher operable in Kensington, just north of the District (I often explain my whereabouts by explaining I live on the edge of disaster), gave out periodically. It happened twice on my street, the mystified crew explaining that the “mechanic” was out that day and there was no way to make the machine function. Besides, the crew explained, the “town” was considering farming out the leaf work to a professional outfit and they’d have nothing to do.
As a matter of fact, the town fathers had given a contract to Unity Disposal, which will begin its removal work after the first of the year. Meanwhile, the current city employees will wrestle with the balky machine which twice on my street broke down, leaving mountains of leaves untouched, as they remained at the end of November. The temptation to light a match is being resisted successfully thus far.
In organized towns, residents are alerted to when their streets are to be swept, when to get their cars out of the way. Not so here. The roar of the single engine that powers the solo machine is all the notice given that the sweep is underway — with no guarantee that it will continue before another breakdown.
One nearly longs for those days when the eastern seaboard disappeared in a smoky haze. The sign was unmistakable: it was Fall.
About the Author
Reid Collins is a former CBS and CNN news correspondent.
Pocono Joe| 12.2.10 @ 6:32AM
Now on the rare occasion that I come across someone burning leaves it smells good and brings back memories.
Robert Pinkerton| 12.2.10 @ 6:42AM
Pocono Joe, I concur fully.
Mike D.| 12.2.10 @ 7:13AM
Yeah, we used to see how long we could stand in the smoke as kids and ride our bikes through flaming piles. I love the smell of burning leaves.
Reminds me of a time now long gone in another universe, far, far away.
Kitty| 12.2.10 @ 7:04AM
I grew up in a tiny village in Upstate NY. Every fall, the town would set aside one night when the whole town raked their leaves into the gutters and burned them. We roasted apples and marshmallows in the fires. That was back when doctors made house calls, we drank from the garden hose (and lived to tell the tale) and the telephone company was a switchboard in the living room of our neighbor across the street. A good switchboard operator was our "information highway." There's nothing like the heady aroma of burning leaves.
Melvin| 12.2.10 @ 7:48AM
God gave us a limited life span on earth, that is why he invented death. We're all going to die of something along our journey of life.
God also gave us simple pleasures, life burning leaves. For those of us who remember, it is as if we are transported back in time as we inhale the smoke of natures intoxicating elixir of Oak, Maple, and other things that have fallen to the ground.
Many times, I've caught myself resting my chin on the rake, gazing into the warm glow of the burning leaves, being transported to a simpiliar time where the neighbor kids would come over while dragging their rakes behind them looking for something other to do than raking leaves.
Everyone had a dog, and the dogs went nuts rolling and playing in the leaves scattering them all over.
My Labrador Snoopy would cover himself up completely and all I would see is a snotty black button poking out from the leaf pile.
Then as I reached down the leaf pile would explode as he shot up like a Saturn rocket.
Towards the latter part of the day when the Sun was almost setting, the air became dense and cold the smoke from from the burning leaf piles slowed to almost to a stand still and the neighborhood looked like a scene from a alien planet. At least to a kid.
Now, instead of the neighbor coming over to chat around a burning leaf pile, the fire department and animal control come over to cite you for emitting a pollutant into the air as deemed by the EPA and animal control issues a ticket for having a dog running around loose in ones own yard. As I let out a sigh of despair I look across the street and see a snotty white nose poking out from behind their curtain.
scythe| 12.2.10 @ 12:02PM
Thanks for the memories. Lovely post. Nothing says Autumn like the fragrance of leaves in a column of fire. Miss it every year.
Smokey| 12.2.10 @ 7:49AM
The burning pile of leaves was a good place to roast "mickeys" (potatoes) theyed be left after the
fire died down and tasted so..good.
Mike| 12.2.10 @ 12:47PM
WE still burn leaves here in rural Michigan.
Your post refering to roasted potatoes brought to mind a reading chapter that was used to teach us how to read when I was in 1st or 2nd grade. The book we learned from was part of the Dick and Jane series and the chapter was 'Zeke's Surprise'. Heburned leaves and hid the potatoes in the pile to be given to the local kids. I think of this story often, 60 years later, as I burn my fall harvest.
Alert1201| 12.2.10 @ 8:49AM
I also remember each night going out with my grandfather to the burn barrel and burning the day’s garbage. We had some wonderful conversations over that barrel.
Ray| 12.2.10 @ 10:00AM
Ahh, the old burning barrel. We also had one, befor the city banned the burning of household trash and we started exprencing the threat of city dumps contaminating the groundwater while running out of dump space. I guess that ban was an improvement over each individual reducing their trash to a few inches of ash, ash which was used as excellent fertilizers in our lush and fertile laws, lawns which now must be fertilizer with applied products like liquid or solid store bought fertilizers, which, I am told, is harmful to our waterways. Will we ever learn?.
Now the city burns the trash, something we all did 40 years ago.
macon| 12.2.10 @ 9:27AM
yes some of the best times were raking up the leaves in the Fall at my grandfather's house and jumping in the piles and then watching my grandfather set them on fire. Family work and time spent together are fading fast and weakening
our families.
Rafael Prieto| 12.2.10 @ 9:29AM
Years ago, last time I started to burn the old dry leaves in my backyard, a neighbor called 911 - imagine our surprise when fire trucks, the police, and an ambulance showed up! The put out the little fire in seconds. The ashes were the best for my next year's vegetable garden, but not anymore. I have no idea what neighbors called 911, and I don't want to find out.
KyMouse| 12.2.10 @ 9:45AM
Each fall, the three of us kids would eagerly anticipate the leaf-burning, because Dad might allow us to help in some way -- a sort of rite of passage. We couldn't strike the matches, but we could keep raking the leaves into the center of the pyre, and stand watch to ensure that no embers went astray. I miss the scent of burning leaves.
Before the burning began, we would rake out little winding paths in the carpet of leaves, and canter around them like horses (we were horse-crazy for years). I will always cherish the memory of a crystal-clear autumn night, complete with full moon, as we cantered around our biggest maple tree.
mike daniels| 12.2.10 @ 10:03AM
I live next to an unincorporated area where leaf burning is allowed. I am not a young yuppie and remember leaf burning as a kid but.... it STINKS, IT IS DUMB, AND MORE WORK THEN putting them in bags for garbage pick up. For all you codgers who think is soooo neat come by when the wind is blowing this smokey stench into my garage. Not all old ways were good.
Melvin| 12.2.10 @ 10:18AM
Then why do you live there? If you want a sterile perfect environment then move your young backside into a condo.
What do you expect from an incorporated area. There was a time when an incorporated area was called being in the country.
Your probably the type that would call the fire department and then poke your nose out from behind your curtain and chuckle to yourself.
If you want a city environment then move back to the city where everything and everyone is forced to live under regulation after regulation to make a, "Perfect" neighborhood with all those stupid housing association Nazis.
Citizen Jerry| 12.2.10 @ 10:22AM
Mike,
I trust you'll keep the term "codger" in your vocabulary for self-reference in years to come.
Chalkdust| 12.2.10 @ 10:43AM
I suspect the only term that will apply to Mr. Daniels now and in the future is.... Curmudgeon! Of course some will insist on other identifications, according to age, gender and medication such as; nosy, busy-body, a**-hole, rotten neighbor, etc.
skedaddle| 12.2.10 @ 10:35AM
Why's your garage open? That's usually a no-no in the snotty neighborhoods.
Kitty| 12.2.10 @ 11:20AM
Why are you bagging your dead leaves? Talk about a waste of time and good garbage bags. I haven't raked'n'bagged leaves for 25 years. Instead, I mow over them. Once cut, they disintegrate quickly .
skedaddle| 12.2.10 @ 10:40AM
Ah, leaf burning and burning trash in a barrel. I loved leaf burning and I really loved it when my dad burned the fence row, using a little something flammable to make a nice, neat burn. No weed wackers, leaf blowers, or other hideous inventions. I live in an unincorporated area and I can burn in a barrel or out of a barrel if I choose. One neighbor, who, of course, works for the EPA, called the police on a neighbor burning dead limbs in their backyard. It was very amusing for the sheriff to tell Ms. EPA that burning was allowed. Their is still hope for America, at least the part that is west of the Mississippi.
FIXIT| 12.2.10 @ 11:24AM
IN ADDITION TO THE BURNING LEAVES, I REMEMBER MY GRANDFATHER SETTING FIRE TO THE LAWN IN LATE FALL. IN THE SPRING, HE GAD THE GREENEST LAWN IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
HighlandMike| 12.2.10 @ 11:29AM
Thank God, I still live in a small NE Kansas Town where everyone burns their leaves; where we have no HMO fee (or rules) and you can still see alll the Stars on a Clear Cold Winter Night.
MBD| 12.2.10 @ 12:52PM
This essay brings to mind a famous two panel cartoon by John McCutcheon which the Chicago Tribune carried on its front page every year in early Fall for most of the last century (not sure if they still do).. It was called 'Injun Summer' - the first panel showed a rural scene where a young boy watched as an old man (perhaps his grandfather) burned the gathered leaves on the edge of a field covered by ricks of hay; the second showed the boy's imagination as the smoke from the leaves changed into a circle of warriors doing a war dance around a campfire and the hay ricks were transformed into teepees. Back in the 60's, at least, it was still an immensely popular fall tradition and was then more than 50 years old.
Traveller| 12.2.10 @ 1:33PM
It cost me $25 to burn my leaves each year...I start burning and the fire department shows up and the fire marshall writes me a citation...It has become an annual event and I have burgers and franks ready for the firemen...It keeps them hanging around...just in case!!!
Kitty| 12.2.10 @ 6:09PM
HA HA HA!!! I love your solution.
Roman Melnyk| 12.2.10 @ 8:58PM
They were also great smokes for many kids, including myself, along with eating hot tar from the street machine as it repaved over old asphalt.
Roman
mmm| 12.2.10 @ 9:32PM
you forgot the times you ate raw hamburger with a little salt without worry about illness!
mm| 12.2.10 @ 9:52PM
used the burn barrel for years upon years to create fertilizer for the gardens and avoid the neo mafioso trash collectors and their arm twisting non restrainable land leechings and a hour of peace and reflections while doing it ....now, i pay twice for the service of having the town burn all thats not of value recycled, and labor to separate non and recyclables for the recyclers to profit....should melt and remold the stuff myself as jobbings...as im not a good obedient servant anymore,,,,,,
Renard| 12.3.10 @ 10:26PM
I live in a 1/4 mile section of "no-man's land" between a small city and an adjacent village. Both have banned burning, but in our unincorporated area, we can and do burn. More than once the city has tried to annex us (primarily due to the fact that their population is dropping; i.e. loss of tax base), but we have fought hard to retain our independence. As a country, we've got to do the same thing!!
forastero| 12.4.10 @ 1:31AM
I live in a large no burn city. I burn my downed tree limbs in the Weber grill. The neighbors don't care. Any law enforcement personnel passing by just thinks I'm cooking out.
GENE HAUBER| 12.4.10 @ 10:03PM
i suppose it's a result of progress, and progress is great, but its gone on far too long.
Peter| 12.5.10 @ 10:22AM
Even fifty years later, it takes only the slightest whiff of burning leaves to transport me back to the Falls of my youth. Raking up all the glorious golden, red and yellow leaves in to huge piles, launching yourself into the pile and disappearing into the depths where it was dim, with leaves crackling when you moved.
All this happened with the aroma of burning leaves hanging like a mist over everything.
Sadly, this tradition is now just a memory for most, like Hula hoops and coonskin caps.
Just something you see in old movies....