Life Along the Way----Cool Green Grass

The South had a major eruption this morning---the second episode in the month of July. This time we obliterated low temperatures for the month of July. An early morning low of 59 degrees in Montgomery shattered a record-low of 66 degrees set in 1889, a National Weather Service meteorologist said, with temperatures falling to 49 degrees in Hamilton, close to the Mississippi border. This is unheard of for Alabama, as we don't experience this type of weather until late Oct or Nov. 
     
This morning,  I walked some bagged grass clippings out to the curb. My feet were bare, as this is a life long habit of a boy of the Deep South. It is amazing what happens to an old guy's mind when his old feet hit cool Bermuda grass for the first time after a long hot summer. (Today is totally out of sync. It has only teased us as we know that the sweltering heat and breath-sucking humidity of August and September will return with a vengeance.)

The first feeling is the total lack of moisture in the grass, even at 6:30 AM. It tells the mind that the humidity is low, the air is dry and the temperature is pleasant. But what really makes the impression on my mind is the cool touch of the grass as it fills the gaps of the toes and soothes the arches of the foot; it is that conditioned response the human body transmits to the brain that takes me to years gone by.

Uncontrollably, my mind drifts to college football. It is as deep a religion as the Southern Baptist denomination in the South; the SEC comes alive with both bitter rivalry and a strange love for one another, knowing that the magic could not happen if we didn't 'love to hate' each  another. 

I hear the sound of ripples hitting the front of my on Jon boat in my family pond as I troll along on a cool fall day, easily catching

my limit of fall bass under bluebird skies. 

I feel the leaves cracking under my feet as fall cleanup brings out the blower, rake and pine straw, putting my crape myrtles and other shrubs and trees to bed for the winter. 

But alas, it is only July; my drifting mind becomes my logical brain, knowing that we are experiencing a freakish cool snap that will not last. Yet
for a moment in time, it is mid September...early October...this Southern Boy's favorite time of the year! If you are a child of the South, I hope you paused and enjoyed it too.