“Winter changed into spring. Spring changed into summer. Summer changed back into winter. And winter gave spring and summer a miss and went straight on into autumn.”

— Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Weather sure is a tricky thing to predict in the state of Alabama.

Lately it has been cold one week, warm the next and then pleasant for one or two days.

When Monty Python put the above joke in their movie, they may have been thinking of “fall” in Alabama. But probably not. Maybe, though.

It seems like I remember this time last year still being warm outside. I don’t recall it getting cold until the third round of the football playoffs around the end of November.

I also seem to remember that Christmas Day was not very cold last year, and it took the onset of winter to produce truly cold temperatures.

This year seems to have straightened up a bit on the whole seasonal thing.

Fall may have actually hit in full swing in 2012.

I asked three meteorologists, a climatologist and a voodoo priestess (none of that is true) and they all confirmed that these mild October temperatures are indeed a “fall” of sorts.

So it seems that it is possible to have an autumn in Alabama, though it seems to be a rare occurrence.

By the end of this football season I might just have to break down and wear a light jacket.

I am very hot natured, so it takes a larger dip in degrees to get me to bundle up.

The only problem with that is when I do, everyone else tends to be freezing cold.

So maybe I won’t have to do that for a few more months, but who knows with this year.

And now for something completely different.

I have a story that some people have heard about the coldest night of my life. It involves football, as you may well have guessed already.

I was a senior at Curry High School playing my last game ever. It happened to be against the Cordova Blue Devils, and the sideline at that field is extremely narrow.

You see, the people that build that stadium did not care in the least about such things, especially the room and comfort of the opposing team.

With about five to seven feet of sideline to work with, one of our coaches yelled at us almost constantly to get away from the sideline.

It is sad that we had a coach designated for that task in retrospect, because one would think our players had better sense than to stand too close to the field, but alas.

I got so tired of being told to get back (I didn’t have to be told) that I stood up against the fence with my arms out.

When I made it into the game in the fourth quarter my hands were so cold and numb that I couldn’t operate my chinstrap or mouthpiece.

True story.