Julia Slaughter

I was born and raised in New Orleans, and even now that I’ve moved I still consider New Orleans to be my hometown. “Do you know what it means to Miss New Orleans?” brings tears to my eyes, more so today than when I moved almost fifteen years ago. I love the City That Care Forgot, the crazy politics that pit crooks and klansmen against each other, the food,the music, the style that is completely unique to the city.

I’ve lived in different places along the Gulf Coast and I’ve grown to appreciate the unique charm and flavor that each provides, Pensacola where the white beaches permeate the whole community with a laid back beach attitude and Mobile with its proud history and beautiful pageantry. However, this time of year despite the places where I’ve visited or the places I’ve called home I start day dreaming about some place I’ve never really been.

I live in a part of the South where it’s green pretty much year round. In the Winter I’m grateful that the highways are lined with green instead of the blues and greys of my friends in the North but in the Fall I long to see the leaves change. We have a tree or two, here or there that will blaze to herald the Fall but for the most part, it’s just green and in September, on the first day of Fall – it’s still hot. (Today we’re expecting highs in the upper 80′s)

A Picture of Fall Leaves from Sleddogmusic.com

Every year I promise myself that I’m going to back up my car one weekend and drive North until I find Fall, beautiful brilliant colors to mark that Fall is here. However, I haven’t managed to pull it off yet, it seems like there’s always too much to do, but today I’m looking at the heating rising off the asphalt dreaming of the colors of Fall. I’ve also been poking around blogs reading about things like apple picking and fall baking, and I look forward to the smell of Pumpkin Bread coming out of the oven soon.