This is an opinion column

It is September, and the lush green kudzu that has hugged the highway and back roads all summer is beginning to surrender.

Corn that had been so tall it blocked the view, has dried into stalks left standing like sticks in the fields.

Cotton is in full bloom white, waiting harvest.

Schools and colleges are back I’m full swing as are their football programs. Weekends during the fall in the South are dominated by football schedules. Friday night high schools games, followed by Saturdays when fans gather in stadiums and around screens to watch and support their favorite teams.

Birthday parties, baby showers, and weddings are scheduled unapologetically around football schedules.

Crows are calling. Squirrels are frantically storing acorns and pecans for the winter that is sure to come.

County fairs are about to begin making their rounds. Ferris wheels will light up small town skies.

Pumpkins are appearing on porches and in yards along with bales of hay, scarecrows, and ghosts. We decorate for fall before temperatures fall. It is usually Halloween before the weather is noticeably growing cold.

It is time for tent revivals, for Baptists and Holiness alike – with the only obvious divide between the two being the shouting. They both preach the Bible. They both offer opportunity for redemption of all the sins of summer.

There will be wonderful singing, and good food at either. The two will intermingle, one attending the tent meeting of the other respectfully. Baptists quietly ignore the Holiness hollering. They don’t down it. They know the worship is since, they accept what they don’t understand.

Hunters are busy preparing their plots in the woods, as deer begin to emerge from tree lines looking for the last green sprigs of summer. Woods that will soon be crimson and gold.

There can’t be full moons every night. We can’t chase fireflies all year. Summer ends.

The wind will soon rise and the air will fill with swirling leaves. Time will change, days will grow shorter, and it will feel as if summer never even happened.

Fall breezes in like an old friend, they say. Sometime in September, during an ordinary afternoon, it comes in, has a seat, and after a short time visiting you find yourself wanting them to stay for awhile.

September makes you want to go back through memories, like traveling old familiar streets. It prompts us to retell the stories we’ve told many times. It is the only way we to visit the past, with it’s places and people.

Fall makes us want to build bonfires. We will sip hot chocolate and roast marshmallows, not so much because we like them, but more because of the joy we feel just doing it.

We wave goodbye to summer this week. The first leaves of Autumn have already kissed the ground.

Amanda Walker is a columnist and contributor with AL.com, The Birmingham News, Selma Times Journal, Thomasville Times, West Alabama Watchman, and Alabama Gazette. Contact her at [email protected] or at https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist.