JESSE MURPHY: I have a mixed feeling about this

Pardon the play on a Star Wars reference, but I have a mixed feeling about the upcoming season changes.

It's an annual occurrence in my head, one that balances the love I have for football with the impending doom of cold and snow.

It balances challenging and exciting hunting seasons with the slow but unavoidable end of fishing season.

Yes, I realize you can fish year round, and although I enjoy ice-fishing, the cost-benefit analysis usually ends in favor of not freezing my butt off and risking my life for a few fish.

The idea of standing on an uncertain depth of frozen water that is the only thing between my boots and a whole bunch of extremely cold liquid water hasn't gained much momentum in my brain.

My memory may just be making excuses, but I'm also pretty sure that it's been a few years since local ponds froze over enough to safely walk on.

Plus it's cold. Really, really cold.

So therein lies my dilemma with the summer to fall transition. Temperature is probably the biggest factor when it comes to me playing favorites with the plethora of seasonal changes in Northwest Missouri.

At least there was plenty of time this summer to soak up some heat. Too bad I can't store it like a lizard.

I've already busted out the heavy jackets (light jackets and hoodies stay around all year). I imagine that the full-on winter coats will be coming out within a month.

Call me weak, call me what you will, but cold is something that no one should have to be.

And I've had it up to here with the "you can always add layers, can't take them off" argument.

I disagree, there are only so many layers you can add before you end up not being able to move like Ralphie's little brother Randy in "A Christmas Story." And you're still not warm.

On the other hand, when it's hot, you can grab the hose or jump in a pool. Turn on the sprinkler. And with a tall enough privacy fence, do layers (or lack of) really matter?

In both hot and cold extremes, you ultimately end up going indoors. Here is where we find the difference. Utility bills are WAY cheaper in the summer.

It costs so much less to keep a house comfortably cool than it does to keep it comfortably warm.

But with the thermostat gremlins in my house, I wear a jacket indoors pretty much year round and the bills are always high.

At what point did we as a species decide that we have to defy nature?

It seems like a non-stop rigmarole of giving Mother Nature that notorious finger. It's like saying, "Ok, you think it should be 90 degrees… Let's make it 65.  Oh, now it's eight degrees? I'm going to go ahead and set it to 70."

Deep breath….

Anyways, another big thing for me when it comes to the fall/winter transition is the death of anything colorful.

I know I could see it with a circle of life type of attitude, but that just doesn't fly.

As a kid, the approach of harvest season meant the fun lazy summer days were over. A full school year lay ahead.

As an adult, you work through it all anyways. But it still brings depressing thoughts when you consider that the normally beautiful area we live in is about to be a drab brown and gray for the next six months.

My final point (that I have room for) is inclement weather. Bad weather in summer dictates an umbrella or rain coat and not standing in the middle of an open field or near metal poles to avoid those pesky lightning strikes.

Bad weather in winter means traffic accidents, slipping and falling, and the possibility that you may be stuck in your house for days with no power and no way to go anywhere.  I bet that rings a bell for many here in Maryville after the ice storm.

I know there are die-hard winter fans out there, and I say more power to you.

But you have to admit, it's cold and depressing. People get grumpy and don't want to go anywhere or do anything even if the weather allows it.

Sorry if I put a damper on anyone's attitude. I'll just be excited for football. Hopefully the Chiefs can keep pulling miracles out of unspeakable orifices.

Jesse Murphy is managing editor at the Maryville Daily Forum. He can be reached at jmurphy@maryvilledailyforum.com