Indian summer

[Natalie Maynor]

>  Where have you heard the expression
> acquiring the described meaning?

I remember hearing it a couple of times last year from local (within
Mississippi) tv news/weather people during the chit-chat stage that news
programs often have.  E.g., the news person turns to the weather person
beside him and says something like, "I hope we're going to have some more
of this gorgeous Indian Summer we've been experiencing" (when the weather
has dropped from the 90s to the 70s all of a sudden).  Just last week
I heard it or saw it used that way again.  Since I know I haven't had
the tv set on in the past few weeks, I'm thinking that I read it in the
newspaper -- something like a garden column maybe.  It started by saying
something like "Now that we're having our first taste of Indian Summer,
it's time to start thinking about planting bulbs."  This was after we
had had our first couple of consecutive days with temperatures below 90.
   --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu)