The cloud cover was so thick while I was driving upstate Friday
morning, it felt as if a gray quilt had been thrown across the
sky. This isn't the sort of weather that bodes well for the
weekend—except at this time of year, when, in fact, it's
reassuring.  Rob Shepperson  Fall is finally back after what
seemed not like an extended late summer, but a fifth season—one
poised between summer and fall, with warm temperatures, lots of
sun, low humidity and little rain. If this is a harbinger of
global warming, I'm all for it.  But I'm happy autumn is here. I
usually am, just so it doesn't come too soon. The sharp winds
and gothic skies portend months of cold, or at least colder,
weather (no matter how badly we mess with the planet, at least
the Earth's axis remains beyond our powers of alteration),
followed, hopefully, by snow.  I'm OK with that. When New
Yorkers who move to the West Coast say they miss the seasons,
I'd like to submit that it's autumn they miss the most. Not just
the light show called foliage that