Dad and The Leaves

Coming to the end of fall I thought I would do a little memorial to my Dad, this time of year I miss him a lot.  Shoveling wasn’t the only activity I have fond memories of, there was also leaf raking.  In the fall we would pick a day, when most of the leaves had fallen, and start the raking.  This would be a sun up to sundown event.    We would get a system down and rake until dark.  We would chat and joke and bag after bag would be filled with red, yellow, green, orange and brown leaves.  At times there was just the sound of the rakes rustling through all the leaves, and the bags being dragged down the driveway.  We would still enjoy the quiet.  Now these were sunny days with crisp mornings.   When we would start there would be a bit of frost still on the ground and as the day went on it would heat up.  Now and then it would be warm enough to be in a t-shirt.

I always enjoyed this time of year and the raking.  Dad always made these chores memorable.  I still to this day get choked up a bit when I rake leaves, I often pause and think of all those memories throughout the years.  Dad standing there resting on the rake for a minute with his slightly oversized work pants on and his old paint sweater-and of course his hat.