School always started later in Phoenix than it did in the high country of Arizona. The last few weeks of summer, I would watch my friends go back to school and know that that fate would soon come my way. Staying summers way up on the Plateau while living in the low desert in the winter was always a disconnect. As the Fall came, I could watch the beginnings of leaves turning and feel the coolness in the breeze, only to return to the Valley and find temperatures still over 100 degrees and no sign of anything cooler than the ice in the refrigerator. In the Valley, we would wait until Christmas to see some of the leaves change and the old leaves would only fall off as the new ones came on.
Every year the newspapers in the Valley would report the various locations throughout the state where the leaves might be seen changing colors. Rather than being a natural event of the change of seasons, it was a tourist promotion. Living in a land that has only two seasons, hot and warm, does have its advantages however. If you choose the right kind of trees, you never have to rake the leaves.
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