Thursday, November 1, 2001

I saw gorgeous foliage last Saturday. Actually, that's not quite true. I thought I saw gorgeous foliage, until some leaf snob informed me that what I considered ``brilliant'' - that was the word I'd been tossing around - was . . . past peak.

In other words, the dregs.

Did I feel like a fool, or what?

``It's like you went to `The Producers' and loved it,'' a friend said, ``but then someone told you that unbeknownst to you, Nathan Lane's part was played by an understudy.''

At first I was humiliated - what kind of Philistine doesn't recognize when something's second rate? - but then I got angry.

What is peak, anyway?

I put in a call to some meteorologists, and while I was waiting to hear back, a discussion broke out in the newsroom, with people falling into two camps: the quality people vs. quantity people.

When it comes to food, the question is a familiar one: Would you rather eat one $3 gourmet chocolate chip cookie, or an entire row of Chips Ahoy!? (On the advice of my image counselor, I'm not saying which I'd choose.)

Like most reasonable New Englanders, I'd always assumed that ``peak'' described the moment - 3:23 on a Tuesday, 1:57 on a Sunday - when the most trees had turned.

But it turns out this isn't quite true. ``The problem,'' Channel 7's weekday meteorologist Todd Gross explained, ``is that some years, that doesn't coincide with the brightest colors.''

Theoretically, Gross added, the foliage peak lasts for about a week, but if you're talking about a really spectacular display - quality and quantity - then three days is pretty much as long as you can hope for.

(A related issue, which I didn't address with Gross, is what conditions make for good foliage? I'm sure I've heard the explanation a million times, but I still have no idea. Is it a wet summer? A warm spring? A late frost? A really annoying move by Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt?)

Anyway, I was surprised to learn that peak is so short, given the amount of attention it receives. Although now that I think about it, the Super Bowl gets even more ink, and that lasts only a matter of hours. It only seems to go on forever.

With so much riding on peak - the economies of the leaf belt states, thousands of budding relationships, the hit counters of untold foliage hotlines - I assumed that there would be some hanky panky going down.

You know the kind of stuff I'm talking about - innkeepers pressuring weatherpeople to predict that peak would fall on Columbus Day weekend; disappointed leaf peepers calling meteorologists to whine about a preponderance of brown or green leaves; and of course, the foliage version of insider trading.

I was on a conference call with Gross and his colleagues Harvey Leonard and Christine Clayburg, and they denied that they acted on early knowledge. If it were me, I'd secretly figure out when peak is, book every B & B in Vermont, then blanket the air waves with the dates - and start scalping.

That way I'd be sure to enjoy peak - even if I didn't see a so much as a single leaf.