[KOSU Commentary]

Good morning, Oklahoma. The ticker-tape parade of autumn is right outside your window. The days are getting shorter, football is in full swing, and leaves are changing color.

Welcoming you to the season is the growing spectacle of pumpkin-flavored drinks. Let the battle between 7-Eleven and Starbucks begin. And, May the best PSL: Pumpkin Spice Latte win.

Oh, and, I can’t forget, the cool dairy treats. McDonald’s with their pumpkin shake and Orange Leaf with their pumpkin pie yogurt. Clearly, the puree is the workhorse of autumn’s kitchen.

There’s nothing new here. The pumpkin has long-been the rock star of October. Whether tucked underneath the arm of a headless horseman or carved into a jack o-lantern, the pretty orange gourd flickers through the season.

In 1850, John Greenleaf Whittier wrote The Pumpkin.

Oh!—fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

Speaking of burning wax, pumpkin drinks kind of smell like a scented candle.  Still, we raise our pumpkin lattes in solidarity. I mean, if you get one of these drinks and you don’t Instagram it, it didn’t really happen.

Fall pumpkins are young, friends. All you need is a phonograph parlor with a lonely window and some Irish love songs.

Men, if you want to watch more football, here’s what you do. Bring your wife a pumpkin spice latte. It’s pretty clear to me that PSL is replacing Reggie Jackson as Mr. October.

And, like a peasant in the middle ages bringing wassail to his feudal lord, turn your boss’s wrath from thy cubicle with an offering of pumpkin cheer.

So, did you know, you can make your own pumpkin spice lattes? All you need is milk, sugar, vanilla, some Jack-o’-Lantern tears, a dash of glitter, and exactly three drops of coffee. Love is in the air. I didn’t mention beer.

Battered Boar Brewing Company in Edmond wants to remind everyone that many young pumpkins aspire to be something more than a holiday centerpiece. They mingle them with Madagascar vanilla beans and Native Oklahoma pecans to create Chuck’s Pumpkin ale. It’s an effervescent concoction of brown sugar, molasses, and a touch of ginger. I personally don’t drink beer, but one mention of clove on the tongue and I’m like, gimme some of that.

Fall in Oklahoma

I love fall in Oklahoma; taking my kids to the pumpkin patch in Tuttle. And, I love the glorious guts of a pumpkin: Stringy and nutty. Gooey seeds.

I scoop out the joys of life in Oklahoma. When I was young I had one big dream. I wanted to backpack across Europe. I never made it there, burdened as I was by colossal student loans that strapped me to jobs I hated.

As we grow older our dreams change. Europe is infinitely less appealing and my Oklahoma home in autumn is where I want to be. In the mornings, I toss two sticks of cinnamon and some pumpkin pie spice in the coffee filter. I brew my own break from monotony, and I circumvent the ho-hum of life.

The actor and comedian Dennis Leary says there are four words we will never hear him say: Pumpkin spice latte, please. But, I hope a PSL is somewhere in your future.

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