Noah Blundo: Leaves change color early -- a love story

In a time of consternation over war, the economy and the Indians' chances in the playoffs, we can always count on the fact that mankind has the drive and ingenuity to come up with something inconsequential to worry about instead.

And the latest installment in the ongoing saga of People Hyperventilating About Nothing is being brought to you by: leaves.

Here in our own little part of the world, and in cities across Ohio and the nation, newspapers this week have chronicled Mother Nature's latest slight against mankind -- changing the time when the leaves turn colors.

Apparently, this year the natural world had the audacity not to schedule landscape hue shifts in coordination with the Halloween color motif, showing an absolute disregard for the welfare of the plastic pumpkin industry.

Also, one write-up of this phenomenon contains the phrase "leaf-peeping tourists," which makes it sound like there are vacationers trolling around in the woods with video cameras, sneakily peering between the boughs to catch a glimpse of two leaves in a tender embrace.

Anyhow, basically a dry summer has led to an early start for the leaf change. The color shift process works as such: cold weather begins a breakdown of chlorophyll in the leaves, which prompts them to begin turning brown, which prompts suburban homeowners -- who throw a fit at the sight of browning anywhere near their dayglo-green lawns -- to spraypaint the trees red and orange.

Now, speaking of plant life and immense human stupidity, consider this salient fact from the continuing scandal surrounding the plight of the Jena Six: They cut down the #%&@ tree!

I realize I am treading thin ice by even broaching this topic within the confines of a humor column, but let me posit this theory, my Theory on Easing Racial Tensions via Cutting Down Trees: It doesn't work. The notable exception to that theory of course being any instance in which pigs fly.

Plus, the loss of that tree's ability to suck up carbon dioxide becomes even more of a liability anytime you get Al Sharpton and Bill O'Reilly huffing about one topic in the same week.

But let's get back to safer leaf-related territory.

Personally, I am all for the early change because the first leaves to wither up every year are poison ivy. I support that development because I get a severe form of the trademark itchy rash, clinically known as Want-To-Scratch-With-Cheesegrater-itis. What's worse, doctors have to subscribe me steroids to get rid of it, meaning I can never be voted into the Poison Ivy Victim Hall of Fame.

My friend Dave came up with a more innovative method to treat his wife Kate's poison ivy. Basically, Kate had the stuff and was itching like all get out, or at least three-quarters get out. Dave, who has no medical training but considerable construction experience, decided that the best way to ease her considerable suffering would be to cover her in drywall mud. So every few hours while the affliction endured, Dave basically spackled his wife.

They are still married.

E-mail Noah Blundo at noah.blundo@timesreporter.com