Look, up in the sky!

My brother Tom and his wife, Betsey, live in Washington State, on the coast, not far from Oregon. So I've been getting regular reports on the West Coast fires. Although they have friends in the Portland area who've been impacted, Tom and Bets are well away from the fire. But their cars are covered with a scrim of ash, and they've had some days when breathing outdoors has been a challenge. 

Before leaf-burning was outlawed, when I was growing up autumn  meant the pleasant smell of burning leaves, as most folks raked their leaves into the gutter and threw a match on them. We had a field near us, and sometimes there were brush fires, most notably the annual fire set by an elderly neighbor. Mr. L was well in his nineties and suffering from dementia. He'd think he was a back in the old country, and would torch the field as had been the practice back on the farm. The Worcester Fire Department would show up, dowse the flames, and that would be that. 

So my association with the burning-leaf smell is a positive one.