October Road

Listen while you read:  Welcome to a month of pumpkin everything!

Well, I'm going back down maybe one more time
Deep down home . . . October road
And I might like to see that little friend of mine
That I left behind once upon a time
Oh, promised land and me still standing
It's a test of time, it's a real good sign

Let the sun run down behind the hill
I know how to stand there still
Till the moon rise up behind the pine, oh Lord
October road

It's the big time life that I can't abide
Raise my rent, tan my hide
Sweet call of the countryside
Go down slow, open wide
I did my time, and it changed my mind
And I'm satisfied

I got so low down fed up
My god, I could hardly move
Won't you come on, my brother
Get on up and help me to find my groove

We'll be walking October road

~  James Taylor

What will October bring? More weather events, more stirrings of war, more tweets, more division? All that, and more food and beverages infused with artificial pumpkin flavoring! As John Oliver noted in a segment from his show a couple of years ago, nobody wants pumpkin spice from December to August. But today welcomes October, the month when you can drink "coffee that tastes like a candle," eat Pumpkin Spice Cheerios, or even spray pumpkin spice on anything ($10.99 for a 3-ounce aerosol can). And while you're feasting on all things pumpkin spice, you can listen to James Taylor's "October Road," on the album of the same name (his fifteenth) released in 2002.

Oliver calls pumpkin spice flavoring "science goo." Made with sugar, condensed milk, and annatto (which gives it its orange color), it also contains sabinene (artificial nutmeg) and eugenol (artificial cloves). And, by the way, there is no pumpkin in pumpkin spice. Synthetic chemistry at its finest.

Perhaps, instead of spending your money on a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks, if you are lucky enough to live in the Northeast, you can take a walk down October Road. The smells of autumn and the sound of crunching leaves will satisfy that human craving for nostalgia and sentimentality better than any artificially flavored beverage. Sweet call of the countryside.

Rocktober!