The realization might follow an overheard remark at approximately this moment each year — perhaps while waiting in line at the Touchdown Club's booth at the Ag Fair, or while wandering among the crowds at Illumination Night. "So tell me," they ask, "how was your summer?"

No week in the Island year marks a transition more vividly than the third week of August. No week of Island summer has more vacations carefully planned to catch its celebrations. Yet even as we celebrate, we find our conversations slipping into past tense, the summer simultaneously culminating and escaping us, streaming away into memory.