[gin blossoms] and [applesauce]

several small things have happened in the last few weeks that stirred up memories in my mind that all remind me of fall. some of them are purely seasonal, but some seem to have been brought up from deep in the storage vaults of my subconscious.

a few of the more standard memories are fairly easy to place. the cooler mornings forced me to bring my plethora of jackets our from the summer hiding places to find a more accessible location on my coat rack. i've also been enjoying riding my bike to work, reminding me of the days before i had a car, or living near campus. i also recently took a revit class. having to follow along in a text book, only to be quizzed at the end of chapters was eerily similar to my grade school days. the couple with an 8 am to 4 pm schedule, and i felt like i was in home room again. two memories, however, took a little more time to figure out their connection to the season.

at the store the other week, i had a mad craving for applesauce, but not just any applesauce, cinnamon applesauce. now this is not standard on my shopping list, so my craving struck me as a little odd. i however brought a pack home and dug in. i was enjoying my first couple of spoon fulls, when i thought to myself, " this feels life fall". upon saying that a rush of memories came back to me. years ago, me and a group of friends would head out into the country, one of their grandparents farms. on this farm were a cluster of apple trees. we would spend the day up in the branches picking apples and dropping them down to our mothers, waiting on the ground. by the end of the day, we would have bags and bags of fresh apples! our mothers wouldn't then spend the next couple of days making batches of cinnamon applesauce and canning it into jars. the rest of the school year, a staple item in the paper bags of our lunches was cinnamon applesauce. although we enjoyed it year round, it was in the fall that it was really enjoyed. i came close to satisfying my craving with the store bought sauce, but nothing beats the homemade stuff i enjoyed as a child.

the other memory took a little longer to figure out. while at work on day, the "gin blossoms" found their way through my speakers. once again, i thought, "this is perfect fall music!" however i couldn't figure out why i thought that. why were the "gin blossoms" fall music? i pondered this for several days.

whenever i hear the gin blossoms, i'm reminded of my middle school years, right around 93 or 94. it was about that time that girls went from being people you wanted nothing to do with, to suddenly being somewhat of an interest. i remember specifically thinking that thought the first day of seventh grade. all of a sudden there were girls in my class, and they were kind of cute! that fall semester, the conversations between my friends quickly switched from discussing the latest episode of the teenage mutant ninja turtles, to something like the following:

"whoa, she's hot, do you think she'd 'go with me'?"

"i don't know dude, i think she likes someone else"

"really? you don't think she'd go for a guy like me?"

"i don't know dude, she's in volleyball, and you're in the marching band."

"true"

simultaneously, this was also about this time that i really started paying attention to and appreciating music, mostly because it seemed like it started to relate to my life. a very popular band at this time was the "gin blossoms". you can play just about any song from their catalog and see why this was the perfect soundtrack for this time in my youth. i'd like to think that i've learned a lot since then and relationships have become easier, but i don't' think that's the case.

i also think just about everyone feels this way too.

so zip up your jacket, turn up the "gin blossoms", enjoy your applesauce, or anything else you can think of to put you in a "autumn" mood, and sit back and enjoy the season.