BY KYLE LOVERN

Like many of you, the Fall of the year is one of my favorite seasons. What’s not to like? Nature gives us the beautiful foliage of reds, golds, orange and brown colors that line our beautiful mountains.

The days are warm and the nights are cold. The first frost usually comes in October, and in some cases, we’ve even seen our first snowflakes.

There is a different feel to Fall. The old timers know what I mean.

I have fond memories of autumn growing up in the Tug Valley area. My dad Sam Lovern and I used to take hikes into the woods, and our family took Sunday drives on the weekend to local hills and hollows.

Some of my best times growing up were spending time with my dad. He taught me the different types of trees native to our hills – oak, maple, sycamore, poplar and others in Appalachia. He loved squirrel hunting, and I would tag along with him when I was young. But he didn’t do very well when I was with him because I was so squirrely myself. It was hard for me to stay still, and I wanted to talk. I tried to whisper, but I’m sure I was not very successful. Dad didn’t mind, however, because I’m sure he cherished spending time with his son.

He showed me the different kinds of nut trees we have in our mountains, like hickory, black walnut, acorn and beechnut. He taught me how chestnut trees used to line the hills but were killed by a blight in the early 1900s. The species was devastated by a fungal disease that came from Chinese chestnut trees introduced into North America from East Asia.

He told me which kind the wildlife liked to eat. Hickory was the favorite for the squirrels, and the deer liked acorns. He would react like most of us to the beauty of the fall colors.

Many times we would take a sack and gather black walnuts. That was always fun for me. Then we would put them in our basement until the green husks turned brown. My mother, Charlotte Hope, would make great chocolate brownies from scratch. I would get a cup and take a hammer to crack open the fresh black walnuts for her to put in the brownies. I sure wish I could have a pan of those now. They were delicious.

Spending family time together was special back then. We didn’t have the internet, we only had three channels on the black and white TV, and you were lucky to have a bicycle, let alone a four-wheeler like many kids do today.

Little things like raking piles of leaves and jumping into them or just hearing the crunching dry leaves under your feet were simple pleasures.

It was a safer time to go into the hills because the cooler temperatures would cause the snakes to head into their dens and we didn’t have to worry as much about them as in the spring and summer months. Many times my friends and I hit the mountain up the hollow and behind my house at Nolan. There was one big rock cliff you could climb onto and marvel at the view. Nature was at its best. There was a freshwater spring nearby that you could drink from and not have to worry about getting sick.

Some of our favorite places for my sister and me to take those Sunday drives were the Laurel Creek area, Millers Creek or Big Creek. Sometimes dad would stop at a little store and buy us a bottle of pop and a bag of peanuts. We really enjoyed those small treats which didn’t come often.

We had love and were able to enjoy the outdoors or simple things in life.

I tried to share some of these memories with my kids and grandkids in the past few years. Now my wife Vicki and I like to drive out, enjoy fall colors and take photos. Vicki grew up much as I did in the Nolan area.

Those are some of the most cherished memories I have and will never forget. I’ll leave you with a couple of lines from the famed American poet Robert Frost.

“I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist.)