Oct 8, 2017 3 min read

Early last week, I noticed my cheeks were a healthy shade of red. I didn’t expect to get color this late in the year, especially since I was in Pittsburgh the whole time. It was 80 degrees! In October! In Pittsburgh! That’s both weird and wonderful.

If this is global warming, it’s just the tip of the iceberg, literally and figuratively. Don’t tell Al Gore, but I was having a great time.

It wasn’t such great weather for my grass, which went from verdant green to a toasty brown. It was, however, great weather for “sitting on the porch, gabbing to friends and drinking a cold one.”

Eons ago, we had a special name for these warm, fall days, but I believe, somewhere along the way, the Politically Correct Police outlawed said moniker. We can no longer use the decidedly antiquated appellation, Indian summer. I’m not telling people that I’m enjoying my Indigenous People of America summer. That doesn’t sound quite right. Neither does Native American summer.

I was toying with the idea of calling it Hot Autumn, but that sounds like a stripper name: “Performing nightly at Blush, meet Hot Autumn! She will scorch you!”

Actually, if you see Hot Autumn and you feel hot and feverish, seek medical attention immediately. It’s probably venereal.

But I digress, like I do. I haven’t come up with a new name for Indian summer. Back in the day, we bandied about the word Indian rather freely. At the time, I was playing “Cowboys and Indians,” while enjoying my Indian summer.

Side note: My mom used to call pomegranates Indian apples, which is strange since they come from the Mediterranean. Also, there used to be this kaleidoscopic corn that would hang on the doors of every elementary classroom in the fall. We used to call it Indian corn. You don’t really see it much anymore. Maybe because it’s called flint corn now, and it doesn’t sound as festive.

I have a theory. When the settlers came here, they probably weren’t used to the heat. Most of the settlers came from England. It rarely got above 80 degrees in Great Britain. Think about the Mayflower fashion choices. You never see the Pilgrim summer collection. We always just see the fall line. Surely, they weren’t always dressed for Thanksgiving.

Picture it, Plymouth Rock, 1741: Sweat soaked the innermost layer of a high, buckled hat of a Puritan named William. This early American settler turned to his Indian friend, Thomas, and said, “Thy autumnal weather tis most unseasonably warm. I shall call thee Indian summer!”

Because Thomas did not say, “I think thou art being a little bit racist, dude,” it stuck.

Then, William broke a couple of his wooden teeth biting into flint corn and pomegranates and dubbed them Indian corn and Indian apples. If he encountered anything new, he slapped the word Indian in front of it.

Oh, Thomas, thou shouldst hath stoppethed him!

P.S. History was never my best subject.