The Mets are back in the World Series this autumn, and the leaves are turning brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red. It's hard not to go back to their great run in 1986 and to think about what we were doing back then. It mostly revolved around playing football in the front yard and building up large piles of leaves at the side of our house. A rather large and old sugar maple tree dominates that side of the house, and along with its numerous much younger offspring in the area there is no shortage of leaves come the Fall.

Of course, once you reach a certain age, simply jumping into piles of leaves is no longer enough. At some point, you salvage whatever building materials are on hand in order to create glorious leaf forts such like the world has never seen. This may be because they are inherently unstable (they are crafted by children, after all). In any event, here are some shots of the one my younger siblings and I created in the Fall of 1986. Note the Gremlins t-shirt!

The next year provided solid growth, both physically and mentally, so we were prepared to take our game to the next level. However, I broke my arm playing pop warner football, so we could use some help. Thankfully, we had it in the form of our neighbor Chris.

As the years would move on, we were still tasked with raking the leaves off the lawn. No longer driven to large construction projects, we devolved back to the earlier forms of entertainment. The simple joy of rolling around a large leaf pile. Even the young can feel nostalgia.