beware of falling walnuts

Fall is that magical time of year when the leaves start changing to vibrant colors (unless you live in Florida), transitioning to brown, and then falling down onto the ground. The changing of the leaves is something that I think most people look forward to. Unfortunately, the changing of the leaves is followed shortly by the raking of the leaves. That's less beautiful and not really enjoyable.

Leaves are not the only things that fall from the trees this time of year. You also have walnuts all over the place. I didn't know they were walnuts when I was a kid, because I'd seen them in stores, and they never looked like tennis balls. I remember when I found out they were walnuts, though. My friend had a walnuts all over their backyard. We played over there all the time. One day, we were playing "kick the can" - a variation of hide and seek - and my brother was "it." He spotted me, I took off, and he gave chase. During this particular round, the can meant for kicking was in the middle of the backyard, where the walnuts were waiting. I jumped the fence and started down the hill, towards the center of the backyard, when my foot came down on a walnut. Consequently, my face came down on a pretty big garden rock. I'm so tough that I wasn't knocked out by the blow, but not so tough that I didn't get right back up, crying, and run home to my mom. I told her what happened, she explained that I needed to be careful about not running around where there were walnuts on the ground, and I went back to play. Everything was good.

That night, however, I had a nightmare. I was asleep, and I became restless. My mom checked on me, to see if I was okay, and in my sleep I gave her a warning that she (and whoever I was talking to in my dream) should heed: "beware of falling walnuts!" I don't remember the dream, but I imagine it was like the Terminator, only the walnuts were killing humans instead of machines.