Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 10, 1995                   TAG: 9509110022
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: STEVE KARK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COOL AIR MEANS SEASON OF STARS IS ON ITS WAY|

As much as I enjoy summer, it couldn't have happened soon enough to suit me. It's been hotter'n a $2 pistol out this way.

The same weather pattern that kept those pesky hurricanes at bay, spinning like bumper cars in the Atlantic, also kept our skies clear and our days hot and humid. The woods were dry as tinder and the neighbor's cows lay in the shade, too hot to graze or chew cud. Even Koko, our dog, who generally enjoys an afternoon romp, sprawled across the deck, too pooped to participate.

Still, despite the relief that comes with cooler weather, I have a bittersweet response to each year's first taste of fall.

Unlike some of my neighbors who have livelihoods that depend on the weather, I have the liberty of changing my mind about it whenever I choose. I don't have a crop to get in or livestock to fatten, so I complain about the weather only so much as it interferes with my mood. Too much sun, I whine about it being too hot; too much rain, I yearn for the sun's return. This way and that, like a squeaky, old barn door.

The thing is, there's both good and bad in any season. The end of summer means we're getting closer to when we start closing up the house and retreating to the comfort of the wood stove.

In the summer months, our house doubles in size as we spread out onto the decks and into the yard. In the fall, as the days get shorter and cooler, we spend more time inside and the house shrinks.

We'll see the end of those evenings we spent out on the back deck watching bats as they snatched bugs on the wing. Though the katydids still call from the trees at night, it'll soon be too cold to listen to them through the bedroom window, which we'll close as the mercury drops.

Worst of all, the end of summer generally means the end of most folks' vacation time. For us this means no travel, our favorite way of spending a week or two each summer. Fall becomes winter; the comforts of home and hearth yield to cabin fever soon enough.

On the other side of the coin, though, there are those things about the fall that I wouldn't trade for a whole month of summer days. First, there's the smell of the season, that rich, earthy smell that comes with fallen leaves and wet ground. There's the smell of walnut husks, too - as my wife recently pointed out to me - and of woodsmoke, apples and apple butter

And more than this, in the evenings the cooler weather replaces summer's haze with crystal clear skies, so that we see the Milky Way more clearly defined than at any other time of the year. It's hard not to feel part of something larger than yourself as you gaze upward at all those stars.

I like to follow that milky path across the sky until I spot the squashed "W" of the constellation Cassiopeia above the northern horizon, and, using it as a pointer, locate the faint glow of Andromeda to the east.

This galaxy, the most remote object visible to the naked eye, is 13 million trillion miles away, a distance which should be impressive enough to briefly diminish anyone's urge to travel and to squash even the worst case of cabin fever.

This sort of thrill, however, has its limits. The time soon comes when it gets too cold to stand outside and look up at the stars. That's when I start to think about summer again.

Oh, well. Nothing's perfect.

Steve Kark is an instructor at Virginia Tech and a correspondent for The Roanoke Times' New River Valley bureau. He writes from his home in scenic Rye Hollow, in a remote part of Giles County south of Pearisburg.