N.A. Summer

Fall is here, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels more like August. The past few weeks have been steamy. Last I looked, it’s October. But then I started to wonder if we can call this uptick in warm weather Indian summer—that period of unseasonably warm, dry weather that happens in these parts.

But according to the National Weather Service, you can’t have Indian summer until after the first frost happens. That hasn’t happened yet.

Where did the phrase "Indian summer" come from?

Indian summer was first coined in 1851 in some letter. Then there’s this novel called New England Indian Summer that was published in 1940. The novel is about an imitation of an earlier season of actual strength.

So Indian summer is a positive?

​My bigger concern: can we even call that warm spell Indian summer? Because I don’t want be all non-p.c. Should we re-name it Native American summer or Indigenous Peoples summer?

It’s kind of like a menopausal hot flash. So let’s just change the whole thing up and call it Fall-pause. This way, no one will picket outside the state line.

And, I don’t want to make the Native American dude in those Keep America Beautiful commercials cry. 

That would be bad,
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