It Ain't Fall 'Til Charlie Gets His Rocks
Sure, the calendar said Sept. 23 marked the start of autumn.
However, my idea of fall isn't 95-degree weather with 100 percent humidity and a large volume of my blood making it into the digestive systems of mosquitoes. It isn't $200-plus utility bills due to the constantly whirring air conditioner. It isn't getting a sweaty armpit just by walking down the driveway to get the paper in the morning. It isn't having to still mow the grass every week because it grows an inch a day.
And it certainly isn't keeping a wary eye on the tropics for whirling masses of clouds possibly heading this way.
No, to me fall starts when that old fussbudget Charlie Brown, clad that crapass ghost costume, makes his annual rounds for rocks on national television.
I never get tired of watching that show every year, and I'm not alone. That sucker has been around since 1966, the year my little sister was born.
There is something about that show that really ushers in the autumn for me. Wherever the setting is, they have a much better fall, apparently. They get the brilliant fall colors while we get the leaves going from green to dog-poop brown.
The show comes around at a time when we're finally cooling off, as the recent cold spell underscores ,and my thoughts turn to sweatshirts, firing up my smoker, making dark ales in my beer bucket and torching things in my backyard burn pit.
There is a dark undercurrent to the "Charlie Brown Halloween Special," something that goes beyond the usual psychological problems of the characters. Perhaps it's Snoopy's dogfight and being behind the World War I battle lines. Or maybe it's about it being 4 a.m. and Lucy having to retrieve her shivering brother from his ill-fated outing to see the alleged Great Pumpkin in the pumpkin patch. Then there is the rejection, with Charlie peering into his bag and declaring, "I got a rock," one of my favorite television lines ever.
It's all kind of dark and eery, to me signifying the death of summer and the beginning of two great months of celebration, from Halloween to New Year's Day. November and December are fall. January and February are winter.
It has always been this way for me, even as a kid. And last night, I got to re-live the start of Charlie Brown's fall kickoff vicariously through the eyes of my two boys, both of whom are nuts about the show.
And when my youngest, Luke, joined Sally word-for-word in her diatribe pointed at Linus for messing up her Halloween, I knew the boy was seeing the show just like I did when I was his age.
Maybe I'll sneak a rock into his bag tonight just for yuks.
However, my idea of fall isn't 95-degree weather with 100 percent humidity and a large volume of my blood making it into the digestive systems of mosquitoes. It isn't $200-plus utility bills due to the constantly whirring air conditioner. It isn't getting a sweaty armpit just by walking down the driveway to get the paper in the morning. It isn't having to still mow the grass every week because it grows an inch a day.
And it certainly isn't keeping a wary eye on the tropics for whirling masses of clouds possibly heading this way.
No, to me fall starts when that old fussbudget Charlie Brown, clad that crapass ghost costume, makes his annual rounds for rocks on national television.
I never get tired of watching that show every year, and I'm not alone. That sucker has been around since 1966, the year my little sister was born.
There is something about that show that really ushers in the autumn for me. Wherever the setting is, they have a much better fall, apparently. They get the brilliant fall colors while we get the leaves going from green to dog-poop brown.
The show comes around at a time when we're finally cooling off, as the recent cold spell underscores ,and my thoughts turn to sweatshirts, firing up my smoker, making dark ales in my beer bucket and torching things in my backyard burn pit.
There is a dark undercurrent to the "Charlie Brown Halloween Special," something that goes beyond the usual psychological problems of the characters. Perhaps it's Snoopy's dogfight and being behind the World War I battle lines. Or maybe it's about it being 4 a.m. and Lucy having to retrieve her shivering brother from his ill-fated outing to see the alleged Great Pumpkin in the pumpkin patch. Then there is the rejection, with Charlie peering into his bag and declaring, "I got a rock," one of my favorite television lines ever.
It's all kind of dark and eery, to me signifying the death of summer and the beginning of two great months of celebration, from Halloween to New Year's Day. November and December are fall. January and February are winter.
It has always been this way for me, even as a kid. And last night, I got to re-live the start of Charlie Brown's fall kickoff vicariously through the eyes of my two boys, both of whom are nuts about the show.
And when my youngest, Luke, joined Sally word-for-word in her diatribe pointed at Linus for messing up her Halloween, I knew the boy was seeing the show just like I did when I was his age.
Maybe I'll sneak a rock into his bag tonight just for yuks.
posted by Brian Pearson at 10:02 AM
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