This 12 months, because it typically does, our Southern California autumn started sizzling. Early October was no joke, with temperatures above 100 right here in Riverside. However all I heard from mates and neighbors on night walks was, “I like October! Halloween is coming! And we’ve bought the Dodgers!”
Everybody is aware of what individuals take into consideration California — that we have now no seasons right here, particularly no fall, no vivid foliage, no harvest festivals. However they don’t perceive the good, intense and colourful season that’s October.
The colours are astonishing. Brochures all the time function the identical palm bushes, however in October, it’s the massive silk floss bushes with their vibrant inexperienced trunks that burst into bloom with big neon pink flowers, Seussian of their cartoonish loveliness. Mine is the queen of the neighborhood, seen for blocks at 40 ft tall and crammed with hummingbirds flashing pink and inexperienced as they combat for nectar. Alongside the freeways, sunflowers bloom with golden depth in counterpoint to the autumn bougainvillea, tumbling down partitions and fences, bursting like fireworks — magenta, peach, gold, pale pink.
The silk floss bushes and bougainvillea will not be indigenous; they’re from South America, however they flourish right here. After I stroll to the tip of my block and onto the Santa Ana River trails, native California takes over and makes autumn really feel like dwelling. Cottonwoods shimmer pale inexperienced and gold, willows fade to yellow, and my favourite tree, the sycamore, glows within the late afternoon warmth, leaves large as dinner plates, a fantastic ochre.
After all, a very powerful shade this fall is blue — Dodger blue. Flags are in every single place on my block, however not the Mexican Dodger flag the Soria household subsequent door normally places up, as a result of we’re all superstitious and an excessive amount of hope may jinx all the things. All of them — 5 youngsters, two dad and mom and a grandparent — determined to not put on their jerseys in the course of the playoff video games however their Virgin of Guadalupe was hung close to the big-screen TV. They’ve a brand new pit bull pet — named Dodger.
Throughout the road, one other neighbor ceaselessly has Dodger watch events on the out of doors display screen in his yard. Within the division sequence in opposition to the Padres, when it was nonetheless over 100 levels, we have been all nervous. When Shohei, Mookie, Teoscar or Max hit a house run, we may hear screaming up and down the block.
Moises, from left, Arabella, Adalynn and Alex Soria, holding their pet Dodger, in entrance of the author’s dwelling and its blooming silk floss tree. Out of superstition, the household didn’t put on their Dodger jerseys in the course of the playoff sequence in opposition to the Mets.
(Susan Straight)
The Dodgers are in my blood. My mom, from Switzerland, got here to Fontana after which Riverside when she was 19. She carried a transistor radio together with her in every single place whereas she listened to the Dodgers, studying to talk English from Vin Scully. She was pregnant with me in October 1960 when the workforce completed fourth within the Nationwide League, however I’m positive that from the womb, I heard her cheering. The Dodgers received World Collection pennants in 1963 and 1965 — these I keep in mind, however solely because the sound of fixed applause on the radio. I grew up surrounded by adults who listened to transistor radios — of their shirt pockets, like my father, father-in-law and my mom, who carried hers round and propped it within the yard whereas we weeded the greens.
This fall, my mom and I pay attention collectively on my automobile radio whereas I take her locations. She is 89 and she or he has dementia. She will be able to’t title all of the gamers, however her pleasure proper now could be Shohei Ohtani. “He’s an immigrant, like me!” she stated, tears streaming down her face when he hit his record-breaking dwelling run in September.
My mother beloved Fernando Valenzuela too, beloved that he’d come to California for his goals. When he died Tuesday, I remembered watching him together with her and the remainder of my household, that prime leg kick and big grin that helped the Dodgers beat the Yankees in October of 1981, one thing we hopefully will repeat this time.
This Blue October has been nice. My letter service listens on his Bluetooth. He lives in San Jacinto and has pushed to San Diego to choose up his girlfriend earlier than driving to Dodger Stadium for a recreation; afterward it’s again to San Diego, then San Jacinto, practically 300 miles in all. I bumped into a person at Ralph’s who advised me he grew up in El Monte. His dad got here dwelling from work in the summertime, he’d bathe, fill a thermos with espresso, and drive the household to Dodger Stadium the place his father would take heed to the sport on the radio within the stands, filling out his scorecard. That’s precisely what I keep in mind from all these years going to video games with my dad and mom: the 5 of us youngsters with our Cracker Jacks, me wanting down the rows at palms gripping radios like talismans.
On Sunday, when the Dodgers beat the Mets to advance to the World Collection, I used to be subsequent door with the Sorias, bearing good luck cookies, holding the child on my lap whereas all of us screamed. And on Friday, all the perfect components of October will mild up Southern California. Halloween and Dia de los Muertos decorations will glow within the evening, scarlet bougainvillea blooms will swirl alongside the sidewalks, and the Dodgers will play the Yankees.
I might be too nervous to look at, in order I’ve all fall I’ll activate AM 570: Residence of Dodgers Radio on my telephone, slide it into the pocket of my cargo pants and stroll the canine across the neighborhood, listening like my forebears who heard voices calling the video games from their pockets, or clutched palms at video games, or on porches and patios in October — if we have been fortunate. At my ft would be the first fallen leaves of the sycamores, their veined facilities holding the new sundown, as they’ve for the reason that starting of time, in autumn.
Susan Straight’s newest novel is “Mecca.” Her new novel, “Sacrament,” might be printed in October 2025. She is a contributing author to Opinion.
