Fall is nice, and the leaves rustle

Down the road
By Milt Gross

 Fall is here, possibly my favorite time of year. It has cooled down some, and I’m no longer wearing shorts. When I walk in the woods, the leaves rustle.

That’s probably my favorite sound, the leaves rustling. As I walk, those leaves rustle, the air is cool, and I’m looking around the woods. On an eventful day, I see a deer, glancing my way and then leaping away through those fall woods.

When I was a kid, several hundred years ago, I stepped into a field below the woods, and there was a doe and her skipper. The doe stepped toward me, and I panicked. I turned and raced back into the woods and up a path toward home. She probably didn’t follow me but was just getting ready to defend her youngster. But she scared me.

What also scares me is when a deer and I surprise each other. The deer leaps away, giving me the first indication of its nearness. I jump from surprise. Then I stand there and breath deeply as I realize what just happened. I never see them before they leap away.

I’ve also seen fox run away, which also startles me. I don’t try to chase them, because they might bite and they might be rabid. I’ve been bitten once by a rabid one. But it didn’t bite my skin, just my jeans. Later it did bite a friend of mine, and, yes, it was rabid. Since it didn’t touch my skin, I never was checked by a doctor.

But mostly it’s deer I startle in the fall. And they always surprise me, especially the way they leap away so fast.

I’ve never seen a bear when I was not in the car. They scared me even with the car around me. When I was driving a tourist bus in Acadia, tourists would ask me about bears as they looked out the window. I most often said that yes, there were bears in the woods, but they were hiding behind a tree or boulder as the tourist walked by.

Now bears never hid from me when I walked in the woods. I don’t think. And even had I seen one, I wouldn’t have been scared. Petrified and panicky maybe, but not scared.

Moose alway scare me when I meet them in the fall. And they seem to approach so quietly, and they are so big. When one bull approached, I got behind a tree.

“Why don’t you go home and get your Sunday dinner?” it asked, as it approached.

“Because you’re in my way,” I answered.

And my knees were knocking so hard, that young bull thought I was calling for help, and it turned and walked away. Do they think I’m so cowardly I’d call for help? Well, yes, but usually I’m so far into the woods no one would hear me calling.

There was one I didn’t run away from. Probably because I didn’t see it as it peeked in my dining room window while I ate breakfast and read the paper.

I almost hit a bull moose one night on a country road. When I saw it in front of me, I slammed on the brakes and the car stopped just short of the moose. The bull jumped into a field and legged it away pretty fast. Of course, it was dark, so I didn’t see how fast. Pretty fast.

I’ve never been lost in the woods in the fall. Which is good, because in the fall my feet don’t leave prints in those leaves. I can’t follow my prints back out of the woods in the fall.

Primarily, what I like about the fall is the scuffling sound my feet make in the leaves.

I love that scuffling sound, especially when I’m not lost.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@roadrunner.com.