by D.A. Marshall

Created on: September 09, 2009

Our family has lived for the past twenty-two years in a wonderful, woodsy neighborhood full of trees, mostly ancient oaks. As you might guess, Autumn is a busy season for us as we work for several weekends blowing and raking leaves to the curb for the city to pick up in late November. We are nearing that time of year again, with the leaves already beginning their journey to the ground below.

When our children were small, we always set aside at least one Saturday to make huge piles of leaves for all the kids to play in. Somehow, wee ones from all over Freeman Grove were magically drawn to our yard to play in the leaves. For an entire afternoon, we would hear the hearty laughter of children as they ran and leaped into the mountains of brown, crackly oak leaves my husband prepared for them. He would stand guard with his trusty rake, waiting for the kids to either tire of their play or beg him to gather the leaves again.

My husband, being a big, overgrown boy himself, loved playing tricks on children. Our leaf raking ritual always gave him a perfect opportunity. He would ask me to cover him with leaves, call out for the kids, and then lay in wait for one of them to walk past him. It gave him great delight to hear the blood-curdling screams of our daughter as he raised up from under the leaves and growled at her. The screams soon gave way to giggles as she and her brother playfully wrestled their dad to the ground. I would watch from a safe distance, enjoying the scene, when suddenly they would all gang up on me. Before long, all four of us would be rolling in the leaves. We would become covered with the bits and pieces of leaves, grass, and small twigs that would cling to our hair and clothing.

Although the leaf raking routine continues, our children are now grown. Gone is the laughter that used to fill those afternoons. Once in awhile, however, an occasional child will pull his bike over against our curb and run through the leaves we've piled near the street. Then, almost as soon as he begins, he will be back on his bike and on down the road. My husband will get out his rake and gather the remnants again into a mountain of oak leaves, ready for the next child to run through.

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