Something in the air

Fall is coming. I can smell it.

I am standing this morning, waiting for the bus to downtown, and I catch
a whiff of the freshly-cut grass in the yard around the bus stop.
Instantly I’m transported back to the summer right before 7th grade,
when I stood on freshly cut grass not unlike where I stand today, except
that grass was on the practice field of Olney ISD, and I waited not for
a bus but for Coach Davis and Coach Ledford to start our first football
practice.

Being the tallest, slowest, possibly least coordinated guy in my grade,
I had a position with my name on it: left tackle. And lucky for me,
since I had next to no practical football knowledge, the
responsibilities of a left tackle in 7th grade football are few: when
the ball is snapped, try to run into somebody and get in somebody else’s
way.

Easy enough, right? But I was horrible at it. And I don’t know whether
it was due to my poor tackling skills, the ball consistently bouncing
the wrong way (if footballs bounce), or the fact that the young men from
Quanah were probably on some kiddie-performance enhancing drugs and had
been held back a few years…but the Olney Junior High Bruins lost every
game that 7th grade year. And again the next year, in 8th grade.

Eventually, I gave up the role of left tackle, moved on to find my
calling as drum major of the Cub Band, and life worked out.

But that’s how I know fall, and football season, are on the way. The
smell of fresh-cut grass and a little breeze that blows just so.