It's Fall Y'all (An Old Timer's Remembrances)

GrayTide

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Nov 15, 2005
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Maybe a week or so early, but the start of college football and back to school days makes me nostalgic for those days of my youth when all was right with the world. Growing up in South Alabama we all knew Fall would eventually come, but we still had to suffer through the sweltering days of "Indian Summer".

Back in those days school started the day after Labor Day and the first high school football game was the Friday after Labor Day. It was an electric time after the slow days of summer, you were back in a routine, back with friends, and were eager to check out the new freshmen girls who seemed to have blossomed over the summer (I am sure y'all know what I really mean). If you played football it was even better, although summer practice was a real gut check. A new madras shirt, un-pleated khakis, weejuns, and white socks, it simply did not get any better than this. Just a few random thoughts.
 

Bazza

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Oct 1, 2011
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Every once in a while......I can put myself at a place back in time. I mean really remember the way I felt...what I was seeing...and feeling.

At 65 years of age, probably like you Gray and many others here, I have so many great memories and although I realize one cannot live in the past...a frequent visit is a very nice vacation.

Happy Fall (18 days in advance) Gray!
 

TIDE-HSV

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Oct 13, 1999
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Maybe a week or so early, but the start of college football and back to school days makes me nostalgic for those days of my youth when all was right with the world. Growing up in South Alabama we all knew Fall would eventually come, but we still had to suffer through the sweltering days of "Indian Summer".

Back in those days school started the day after Labor Day and the first high school football game was the Friday after Labor Day. It was an electric time after the slow days of summer, you were back in a routine, back with friends, and were eager to check out the new freshmen girls who seemed to have blossomed over the summer (I am sure y'all know what I really mean). If you played football it was even better, although summer practice was a real gut check. A new madras shirt, un-pleated khakis, weejuns, and white socks, it simply did not get any better than this. Just a few random thoughts.
When I graduated from HS, I went immediately to UA for the summer term. The break was, I think, five days. People who don't think there's not a major temperature difference between north and further south in Alabama are crazy(don't try to convince me that Tuscaloosa is "north Alabama"). I thought I'd died and gone to hell. After my short break, I returned to T-Town in early September, two weeks after an emergency appendectomy. I tried to drill and the last thing I remember is the sky turning a weird shade of pink and trees blue. Then, there was a flash of light as my face met the turf... :D
 

GrayTide

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Tuscaloosa between May and November is almost unlivable. I recall moving my daughter into Julia Tutwiler in mid-August without benefit of the elevators. There were several times I thought I was dead.
 

TIDE-HSV

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Tuscaloosa between May and November is almost unlivable. I recall moving my daughter into Julia Tutwiler in mid-August without benefit of the elevators. There were several times I thought I was dead.
Aside from the appendix, I had another ailment I was unaware of. I knew that, when I got overheated, which happened frequently in the T-Town summer, I developed a raw throat and cough. I was carrying strep. And giving it to my nieces and nephews on visits home. A internist in T-Town who was very acute and ahead of his times figured it out and put me on long-term penicillin. That finally cleared it up...
 

TIDE-HSV

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Indeed. I miss the temp change you get up there around Labor Day. I lived in Mobile for 8 years before I moved here and fall breaks earlier there, too.
I've had friends and relatives who moved to Houston who said about the same. One niece retired from Johnson there and moved to the San Antonio area. She says that, even though SA is slightly further south, the heat is no comparison because of the much lower humidities...
 

GrayTide

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There is a day in late August or early September when the sky changes from summer to fall but, you never know when it will happen. You go outside and it just doesn't look like summer anymore. Usually the dogwoods are the first to give way to fall, their leaves turn a little brown and get crinkly. While it is still unbearably hot in early September, the mornings can be cool, but quickly gives way to the heat and humidity. The Friday night football games at this time are still steamy and muggy, looking forward to October and November. It is now the second week of school and if you don't already have a girlfriend, you start the culling process, man that was fun.
 
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TexasBama

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I've had friends and relatives who moved to Houston who said about the same. One niece retired from Johnson there and moved to the San Antonio area. She says that, even though SA is slightly further south, the heat is no comparison because of the much lower humidities...
My oldest friend (we were in HS in Decatur and roommates at Bama) built a place near New Braunfels last year but lived in Corpus Christi for 30+ years. He always said Corpus has two seasons - this summer and last summer :)

He bought a swamp cooler recently (they work over there) that was built in Holly Pond, Al.
 

TIDE-HSV

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My oldest friend (we were in HS in Decatur and roommates at Bama) built a place near New Braunfels last year but lived in Corpus Christi for 30+ years. He always said Corpus has two seasons - this summer and last summer :)

He bought a swamp cooler recently (they work over there) that was built in Holly Pond, Al.
I'm familiar with those coolers, even whole house, with a stack. The old Self family farm was in Berlin, right by Holly Pond. I also graduated from DHS - 1957...
 

TIDE-HSV

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I’m DHS class of 75. I think I’ve mentioned before, but my dad grew up in Falkville with Newt and Sherman Sr Powell
I knew the family well. Sherman Powell signed as one of my two references to enter law school and Newton as the other. I went all the way through law school with Jasper Powell...
 

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