Today was the first day of the summer that I thought felt like fall. Cloudy almost all day, with a chilly breeze. When I went out for a walk, I put on a jacket I haven’t worn since May and heard some of the first fallen leaves of the season being blown across the pavement. It was only hot for a few minutes around 3:30 p.m., when the sun got a chance to shine for more than a few minutes.

Lakeside Island
Lakeside Island Park in the evening.

View of Lakeside Mall

Looking back, this summer began to make itself felt here in mid-April, when I texted my friends about the first days of the year above 70F. “I’m already tired of the summer. It’s too hot,” I said on April 14. Spring still had a hold, though, and two and a half weeks later, I said the summer had been “teasing us” with a high of 64F.

We ended up going through a couple of heat waves, one at the beginning of June and another at the start of July. I started complaining in early August, too: “It might be a bit hot to stand and listen,” I texted while figuring out whether I should go see a local guy read aloud from the Declaration of Independence.

Today’s taste of fall was over by 9 p.m., by which point the dew point had crept back up to 60, and I relented and put on the AC.