Editorial: Starting anew

Maybe it’s something in the air — it definitely was this week when it was cool and sunny — or maybe it’s in the way kids seem to be walking a bit more slowly, even raising their eyes now and then from the tyrants in their palms, and losing themselves in their thoughts. Or maybe it’s just imagination taking over, willing a change of season, even though the calendar says summer will be around for another month.

The summer of 2025 is slipping away. School is starting, vacations are over and we can sense the days coming when, as Don Henley wrote, “Nobody on the road / Nobody on the beach / I feel it in the air / The summer’s out of reach … the sun goes down alone.”

We’re hearing, of course, about the great event of “Tumbleweed Tuesday,” when all those superfluous people will be leaving us in peace. There is something to that, of course, but “summer people” are a part — an important part — of this place as much as anyone else.

It seems odd to compare a place of small towns and villages to a large city, but it works, taking E. B. White’s template of what makes up the life of New York. White said there are three types of New Yorkers, the native born, the commuter and the person who has come from somewhere else on a “quest” and settled down. All three are necessary for a place to thrive, with the born-and-bred providing stability and continuity, the commuters giving a sense that life is active and not static, and the settlers bringing a new-found passion to the place.

So it is for where we live, and all the talk of “tourons” (tourist/ moron) is just snobbery dressed up as authenticity. We all need each other to make this place work.

The long Labor Day weekend will close out something and bring something new, with school opening next week, and the start of the political season here, which looks to be a nasty one. God help us. Give us a touron any time as opposed to a true believer calling down Armageddon if a particular point of view is not recognized as the path to the Promised Land.

We can hope that the youngsters walking along, lost in their thoughts, will have peace enough to find their own paths as the calendar and season turn.