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Ah, October

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 15, 2008

October has always been my favorite month, at least up north. In my home state of Indiana the weather was almost always beautiful, with lovely blue skies and cool crisp air. It was the time to take a ride to Nashville, Indiana, to see the colorful foliage on the few hills in the state. You'd better have made reservations the previous January; otherwise, there'd have been no room at the inn if you planned to stay there for a few days.

But I've enjoyed autumn in other states, too. One of my fondest memories is sitting one fall day on a bench on the large bricked walkway around the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. I was in the middle of a large Italian festival. There I was, on a glorious day, watching the sailboats while eating a cannoli and listening to Italian opera, my favorite. What better way to spend a few hours? Only a romantic Giovanni or Luigi on the bench beside me would have improved the day.

Regarding Baltimore, maybe a reader from Maryland can explain a bull roast to me. I remember attending one or two when I lived there for five years, but I never understood too much about them except that the beef, slow-roasted over an open fire, had an incredibly wonderful taste. I've never eaten such delicious meat since, and I've never lived in another state which has bull roasts. I wish someone would start such a festival in Florida. I would be first in line.

Or there was the time I drove to Cornell to meet up with a male friend for a typical college weekend - a football game followed by parties. I enjoyed all the activities and the companionship of a guy I liked a lot, but the highlights for me were the beautiful days and gorgeous multi-hued scenery around Cayuga Lake and the hilly roads in that area. That's the part I really remember.

There must be a lot of festivals in Baltimore, or else I was in a festival-going mood when I lived there. Another one, a huge festival, was their Octoberfest. The large German community really knew how to put on an Octoberfest! My mind is flooded with memories - many, many tables of beer-drinking folks lifting their steins and swaying in time to the "Eins, Zwei, Drei Drinking Song"; one after another, complete strangers grabbing me and dancing me around the large dance floor to the polka - and a man in Lederhosen shouting something in German every time he saw me. My German girlfriend translated - "There's the pretty girl in her pajamas." I guess to him, my outfit looked like something to sleep in - it probably did, as I had no idea what to wear to an Octoberfest. However, for the record, I know I wasn't in my PJs!

Finally, a memory I can't forget was the tiny Octoberfest at the American Legion Home in my little town of Speedway, Ind. It pales in comparison to the other festivals I've mentioned, but my family looked forward to it every year. We ate bratwurst with sauerkraut first, and then danced the night away to polka music. My mother had to take me aside and warn me about the dangers of older men wanting to dance with young girls. After that lecture, I spent more time on the small "midway," which was set up to keep us kids occupied while the adults gambled.

As I seem to be working backward in this column to my childhood, I'll close with an autumn activity my Hoosier friends and I enjoyed. We would rake large piles of leaves and jump into them. Please understand I was very young when I did this. When we tired of jumping into the leaves, my girlfriend and I would use the leaves to outline our dream houses - plans for the ones we hoped to live in some day with our husbands.

The leaf outlines would show great detail: where the living room, kitchen, bedrooms, closets, doors, etc., would be. The final fun was walking the alleys of our town, hunting for treasures we could put in our pretend houses. Empty wine bottles became lovely vases while empty bean cans were put on the pretend shelves in our pretend pantry. Okay, okay, life was slow in my Indiana childhood, but very, very good!

Rosie Clifton is the author of "Kissing Lots of Frogs, a Long Journey to Love." Visit her Web site at rosieclifton.com.

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