It’s human nature to categorize, to organize, to put things in boxes. Take seasons. Conventional wisdom holds that Labor Day weekend is the last weekend of summer, and thus we are now firmly ensconced in fall. That it’s common for daytime highs to flirt with the ninety degree mark in September is inconsequential. Last weekend, I observed a couple of early tourists who apparently wanted to get a jump on the autumn trip to the Northeast thing. They were both dressed in jeans and sweaters.
Poor September is a misunderstood black sheep of a month, an overlooked middle child sandwiched between universally likeable August and over-achieving October. People consider September to be a part of autumn, when really, deep down in its soul, it’s a summer month. It tries to live up to people’s autumnal expectations but only occasionally delivers. In this respect, September is the seasonal equivalent of New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez (or New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow – take your pick). For those with an aversion to sports metaphors, we could analogize the month to the artistic Appalachian teenager of B-movie fame, who, at 18, follows dad to work in the coal mine even if his lilting tenor suggests he really belongs on a Broadway stage.
Local vegetable farmers are constantly battling the September-is-fall perception, since mid-August through mid-September is the pinnacle of our Northeastern growing season. Farm stands have everything possible now, including locally grown produce like watermelon, peaches, and habenaro peppers that can seem impossible to fathom. And yet peoples’ tastes change after Labor Day. They’re moving on to apples and root crops. Red meat. Watermelon and sweet corn were fine on Labor Day weekend but have since fallen out of fashion.
Many people with home gardens have moved decisively into harvest mode. This means no more weeding, pruning, spraying. No more coddling or care. Potatoes are popped out of the earth like buried treasure and cauterized by the sun. Tomatoes are picked clean – ready or not – then graded by color and left to ripen on sun porches. Yes, we could probably still sneak in a final planting of cold crops, but only the die-hards among us do.
Hunters have begun to venture afield, some to hunt bear and gray squirrel, others to get a jump on pre-season scouting for deer and moose. Sure the woods are still way too green to pattern game, but they still go anyway. On hot days their feet steam in rubber boots as they slog through sulphury mountain bogs, sun blasting down. Parched with thirst, saw-grass lacerations on their bare arms, they think to themselves: why am I not fishing today? It’s a rhetorical question, of course. They hunt because it’s bear season. And as we’ve already established, it’s fall.
The irony here is that if we could leave our desire for categorization at the door, September would probably be everyone’s favorite month. It is, after all, summer’s crescendo. The encore when the Stones come back out and play Gimme Shelter. The western sky after the sun disappears behind the horizon and the heavens go from sharp white and yellow to brilliant pink and pastel. The part in the Rocky movies when Rock falls down, sees Mick’s ghost, and then gets off the canvas and knocks the other guy out.
This is the time of year when the sweet corn is extra sugary and the nighttime skinny dipping is at its velvety best and the fishing is just getting good. This is the month to travel, to cook out, to hit the water with your canoe. September is just a drier, more mature version of June, that magical month we associate with climatic perfection.
But, of course, as any school-aged child can tell you, summer’s over. I’m off now to pull up my tomato plants. This weekend my big plans include watching football, cleaning my rifle, and chowing down on what is already the year’s third apple pie.