Well, in case you haven’t noticed, summer has slipped away and I’m not even sure I saw it leave.

Compared to the rest of America, summer always comes late around here and it disappears far too quickly, though I must admit this year it’s lingered much longer than usual. I hate to see it go. Contrary to many, I thoroughly enjoy 80 and 90 degree days and it never gets so hot I complain.  (On second thought, I recall one afternoon in Phoenix when it hit 118 degrees and that got to be a little too much.)

Officially, fall began Tuesday, the 23rd. However, if you ignore that astronomical fact, autumn sort of sneaks up on you, as though gliding in on silent rollerblades. Our garden greens are going to seed, the lawn has finally stopped growing, there are patches of fog around the Krain corner and the evening chill requires a light jacket. Yet, it seems like I didn’t fully realize the autumn shift until I abandoned my usual diet at the Puyallup Fair and bit into a hot scone dripping with raspberry jam.

Yes, indeed, we’re about to nestle into those gray, overcast, Northwest days of Morris Graves.   Yet, we shouldn’t underestimate how colorful our fall actually is and, by the time you read this, the brilliant, scarlet splash of our Railroad Street maples may already be under way. Our fall isn’t as brilliant or multi-hued as an awesome New England display – we lack the silver and varying shades of red – but nevertheless our autumn color is surely preferable to the monotonous, seasonless drone of the Southwest. I might recommend a drive down the Green Valley Road.

Halloween and Thanksgiving are just around the corner. On a personal note, I can look forward to my birthday in November. Owing to a gross political oversight, which I’ve labored in vain to correct, neither Halloween nor my birthday has yet been canonized as an official, national holiday.

Late in the fall, Linda Kittleson will be painting her pretty seasonal/Christmas scenes on the windows of downtown stores. And then, autumn will also slip away as silently as it first appeared and we’ll welcome the chill of winter sliding down from the uplands, this time on ice skates.  And with it we’ll ring in the holidays, my favorite time of year. (Decorated plastic Christmas trees have already appeared in Target.)

As Sinatra was fond of singing, “The Best Is Yet To Come.”