Dammit, the leaves are already changing. I actually saw some fall into the street the other day – right off the freaking branch. School has started. Football and volleyball teams have been practicing for weeks. There are Pumpkin Spice Cheerios and Halloween candy on the shelves.

It’s fall. It’s showtime. Let’s try to not absolutely frickin’ blow this, OK? 

As I’m sure I know you all agree, fall is the very best season, and any naysayers out there can stop just reading and immediately walk into the dark woods outside of town, never to return. What, you love summer? We don’t need your hot, sweaty, humid energy here. Enjoy the dreadful forest.

Let’s make this fall one for the books, OK? I want people to be talking about the fall of 2023 for the next 1,000 years. Let’s take what we learned last season and apply it. Apply it straight into the chilly, orange-hued stratosphere. Because I don’t want “next level.” I want god level. I want the Cthulhu of Autumns, you get me?

Here’re a few ways we’ll make it happen.

The Gourd Horde

GET YOUR PUMPKINS TODAY. Bring them home. Wait ‘til midnight. Play your favorite collection of spooky Halloween sound effects on the wobbly old phonograph you found in that weird empty room in the basement. Carve some jack-o-lanterns. What’s that, you say? They’ll rot within a few weeks? Good! Throw their gooey carcasses into the dark woods and go buy more pumpkins. Repeat as needed all season long. I’m talking wave after wave of good, gourdy fun.

What are you waiting for?

Embrace the Spice

Do you despise Pumpkin Spice lattes and the people who drink them? Do you love making fun of the “White Girls of Instagram” and their giant, steaming cups of sugary, caffeinated, pumpkin pie slurry? They’re the worst, right? WRONG. You’re the worst. Stop caring about what other people like as long as they like fall. Which they obviously do. Concentrate on your-own-damn-self and what you can do to make this fall so over-the-top amazing that children and the elderly pass out on the sidewalk. And you know what? Pumpkin Spice lattes are GOOD. (As long as they’re not too sweet.)

Rise of the Franken-Crow

Yes, I too enjoy that big winter season with all the lights and the big, bearded man in red and the Holiday Which Shall Not Be Named and its classic decorations. But fall and Halloween decorations are better. I know you know this. Everyone’s yards look better and bloodier every year. But where are the municipal decorations? If downtown Eau Claire can scrape together the cash and donations for a giant pine tree and its many shiny baubles, then why not a nice, big Autumn decoration? How about a thirty-foot scarecrow with a horrible jack-o-lantern face? In a nod to the area’s logging history, give it a massive ax. And a necklace of caramel apples. Demon wings made of corn stalks. An apple cider fountain at its hay bale feet. Shove a 72-inch television into its gut and play Hocus Pocus on a loop or something.

SEND A FLIPPIN’ MESSAGE IS WHAT I’M SAYING.

On Orchards and Patches

Visit the area’s wonderful apple orchards and pumpkin patches. All of them. Understand? Go to every single one. Go early. Make a schedule. Hop on Microsoft Excel and design a chart to rate their many delightful amenities. After each visit, ask to see the owner and provide them with your constructive feedback. You are not there to tear them down. You are there to build them up. Make them better, faster, stronger, autumn-er. And don’t just suggest a Jack-o-Launcher pumpkin cannon to everyone. Find what makes each place unique and strongly encourage the owner to find a way to put it center stage. Celebrate their individual fallishness. Let’s raise the bar.

OK, that’s enough to get you started. Fall is here. It’s go time. And we will not eff this up.

You hear me?