Editorial: Beauty of the 10th month

October is the beautiful one at the party, turning heads, glamorous and dazzling.

Seated between whimsical, not-quite-sure-of itself September (summer still? Or suddenly fall?) and dour November, October swans in with brisk mornings fading to soft afternoons and chilly nights. In daylight hours, it dresses itself in bronze, scarlet and amber, with just enough green to make sure you know it has made an entrance.

And October moons celebrating harvests shine extra bright for romantics everywhere.

People come from all over the country to the Northeast to see October leaves showing off. According to the Boston Globe, the National Park Service estimates that New England businesses rake in (apologies) over $8 billion each year during the autumn season.

Public relations outfits coined the term “leaf peeping.” If that doesn’t make you gag, some are now referring to the act of appreciating October’s beauty as a “leaf peep show.”

But forget marketing ploys. A trip into the woods on bright days is exhilarating, and even spotting a maple tree from a car window alight in red can give you a sense of wonder.

The 10th month of the year, it was originally the eighth in the Roman calendar, and it took its name from the Latin “octingenti,” or eight, according to Dictionary.com. When Julius Caesar padded the calendar to 12 months, he wisely decided to leave October’s lovely name alone.

The website also reports that the word October came to us though Old English, which took it from Old French, replacing the wonderfully weird Winterfylleð. (Or wonderfully wyrd, as those Old English people would have it.)

It is said to be the month of revolution, since the Russian Revolution is often called the “October Revolution.” October can take credit for it, but the Bolsheviks were working on the old Russian calendar, so for them it was actually November when they seized power and changed the world.

Oktoberfest, which started in Munich as a harvest day celebrating the German people’s sense of community through the touchstones of food, beer and music, has now turned into an opportunity for many young and not-so-young folks to crowd into places cheek by stein, chugging brews and later throwing up on their shoes.

But we must not be cynical. Oktoberfest keeps oom-pah-pah tunes alive, so be grateful.

The month concludes on Halloween, which comes down to us from pagan revelries celebrating the fact that the dead are all around us, and also within us. Nothing is more true, if we think of those we love who have died, but live with us every day. Edna O’Brien has written: “You know that in fact a whole entourage of ghosts resides in you, ghosts with whom the inner rapport is as frequent, as perplexing, as defiant as with any of the living.”

Here’s to a happy, peaceful October 2025.