In this first of a four-part series: Aaron, Thomas J. Duke, and the 7MS team create a Rockwellian guide for you to enjoy the changing of each season. This episode: Autumn!
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Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional vocals: Cori Birce
Art: Pete Whitehead
Original Music & Sound Design: thomas j. duke
S3 EPISODE 7: THE FOUR SEASONS: AUTUMN.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
What do you do when you have a chance to meet your hero? Are address books the key to unlocking fated memories? How does one become a cult leader? Does anyone else miss those Friday nights in Blockbuster when you would fight with your sister over what VHS tape to run for the weekend? No? Just me?
A lot can happen in seven minutes, including all of these stories and more on Aaron Calafato's podcast, 7 Minute Stories. Each week, join Aaron as he takes listeners on a whirlwind adventure told in his engaging storytelling style as he delves into his own memories and helps us learn a little bit more about ours, all in seven minutes. These are the kind of stories you have to hear to believe, and you'll only find them on 7 Minute Stories. To subscribe and learn more, visit 7minutestoriespod.com.
You're listening to 7 Minute Stories with Aaron Calafato. This is season three. If you want to connect with us or grab some merch, visit us at 7minutestories.com. That's the number, 7minutestories.com. This episode: the Four Seasons, Autumn.
It's late September, early October, and when you head out to the porch to have your cup of coffee, you notice something has changed. It's like it's overnight. The first thing you notice is that there's a change in the air. It's cooler. It's not freezing, it's not even cold. It's just chilly. So you may want to get a hoodie, zip that up, maybe a flannel. Go get your favorite flannel. Wear that just to stay warm. When you're holding your coffee, go out there and hold it with two hands. Not just one, two. And keep it a little closer to your chest, just to stay warm in the early morning hours.
Now, the frost that you see on the grass, it scares some people, but not you, because you know it's only going to last for a couple of hours because the sun's going to come up. It's going to hit somewhere today between 48 and 57 degrees, 58 degrees, partly sunny, partly cloudy. And you know that it's fall. You realize that this is what could be considered the greatest season of the year. There's so many things to see and look forward to, and you can't wait to get started on your day.
So you decide to take a walk and you go out onto the front porch and you take a deep breath. Man, that air is distinct and crisp, and you enjoy the way it feels when it goes into your nostrils, into your lungs and back out. It's just invigorating. It's hard to pinpoint the exact way that it smells. It's sort of sweet and smoky simultaneously, but it just smells like fall to you. That is the smell of fall. So you start on your walk and you can't help but be flooded by memories.
You're looking at all the trees. It's like the yellows and the oranges and the reds and the purples are all watercolor paints spread across all the leaves and all the trees. Then when the leaves fall, it's like those paints are dripping all over the neighborhood, on the street, in the sidewalk, on the lawn. You notice the sound they make underneath your shoes. You love the crunch and the crackle. You start sliding your feet. You start kicking the leaves. You start pushing them aside. You're looking around because you feel like you're a 10-year-old kid and you want to make sure no one sees you doing it. You're loving this a little too much.
When you look, you see a car coming. When it passes you, it kicks up all the leaves in the street. All those leaves do this choreographed ballet in the air before they fall back into a new position on the ground. When you look at the lawn, it actually makes you feel a little bit annoyed because you realize you have to go home and rake up all these leaves.
But you realize if you rake up all the leaves, that means you have a leaf pile. That makes you think about when you were a kid and how excited you were jumping in a pile of leaves and how you would do it all day. You would have to be called inside by your parents before it got too late. You could build entire worlds in those piles. Your imagination was just untamable when you used to do that. You think to yourself, "Who made the rule that adults can't do that?" So you decide that's what you're going to do. You're going to rake some leaves into piles and you're going to jump in them, no matter what the neighbors think.
When you're done with that, you better get to your calendar because there's a lot to plan for the rest of fall. First thing you're going to do is you're going to take your sweetheart to an apple orchard. Man, you love driving up and seeing all the apples sun-kissed, thinking about which ones you're going to pick. You've learned from the past, so you got to examine the apple, watch out for the bees and the wasps because they can get crazy.
But you love walking in to the storefront, getting your basket, but before you even do that, you love getting a caramel apple. That first bite you've been looking forward to all year, biting through the caramel and hitting that sour Granny Smith apple underneath. It's worth the yearlong wait.
After the apple orchard, it may not be that same day, but a few days from then, you know you've got to go out to the pumpkin patch. Now, you get tempted sometimes by the little pumpkin displays on the side of the road, and that's good for a quick pumpkin fix, but you need to go out for the whole day. Go out with someone that you love and pick some of the weirdest pumpkins you can find, the weirdest gourds you can find for your front porch. Hell, if you get too many, give them away. But also don't forget, you've got to get a few pumpkins so you can carve jack-o'-lanterns because Halloween is right around the corner.
There's a lot of things you got to do for Halloween. You got to carve jack-o'-lanterns. You got to make pumpkin seeds. You got to watch all the movies you promised yourself you would, all the scary ones. You're going to try not to chicken out this year. You know you have to do some fires in the evening because there's nothing better than having a fire with friends on a fall night. Maybe picking up your guitar and playing it. You'll have jackets and hoodies and it's a clear night and the stars are out. Oh, man, it feels so hopeful.
Maybe you'll have a Halloween party this year and do that. Or maybe you'll get a lot more decorations and make a scene in your front yard. Maybe it will be so good that people around the county will stop in front of your house in awe and just look.
But towards the end of fall, you'll probably find yourself on a hayride in the evening. You love sitting backwards on the trailer as the tractor pulls you through the farm and the fields and the corn. Your eyes are fixated on the horizon for the sunset. It's a bright fire orange. It's amazing. It's only a few minutes before that sun goes down and you don't want to miss a second.
It's starting to get colder and you know that season is about to end. But as you're looking up at the sky, you think to yourself, "I don't want it to stop. I want it to stay like this forever." So you take one last mental image of that fall sky because before you know it, it'll be snowing.
7 Minute Stories is created and performed by Aaron Calafato. Our senior audio engineer is Ken Wendt. Our resident artist is Pete Whitehead. Original music by TJ. Duke. If you or your company needs help starting a podcast, Aaron and Ken's company Valley View does just that. Reach out to them at valleyview.fm. Special thanks to our partners at Evergreen Podcast. I'm Cori Birce. Make sure to tune in next week for another story.
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