Summer’s over

You can’t tell it by the forecast, but summer is over.

Kindergarten through 12th grade students in my county return to the classroom August 4. Today, I move our middle son, Harris, into a new apartment on campus for his junior year at Mercer University.

Like it or not, it’s back to school season, and for reasons I will expound upon, summer is over.

But is summer truly over?

I believe the real issue with all this “summer is over” talk is that we have imprecise language around the change of seasons. This is true for more than just summer. Take autumn for example. If you follow the whole solstice and equinox thing, in 2025 fall will be September 22 through December 21. You know, the autumnal equinox concluding in the winter solstice. Rolls right off the tongue.

This year, summer began with the summer solstice on June 20. It ends, according to these weather and equinox people, with the aforementioned autumnal equinox September 22. But all these equinoxes and solstices have become largely irrelevant to us. Seasons are marked by more tangible characteristics.

In the New South, summer is when kids are not in school. In ancient times, like the ‘80s (or so my kids tell me), school was out for almost a full 3 months. We still went back to school before the autumnal equinox, but it was late August. If school started before an August 20-something date, that was wildly inappropriate.

As has been widely discussed in New South Essays, my birthday is July 30, a date that has shifted as a calendar metric over my lifetime from “midsummer” to “end of summer.”

This is 100% because of school. We now think “fall” when we send our kids back to school. But this is a violation of the laws of nature and common sense.

There will come a day when I no longer have any children impacted by school schedules. Maybe then I’ll pay more attention to equinoxes and solstices. Until then, I will be subject to the shrinking definition of “summer” and the elongation of the fall idea.

That’s the real issue here. The Big Autumn industries can’t wait to foist their pumpkin spiciness on us. Not to go too deep into conspiracy theories, but I’m not exaggerating when I say I saw my first pumpkin spice social media content on July 5. You see, Independence Day has become the new calendar metric for “midsummer.” And these fall people would have us believe that we can start all the fall stuff whenever we want.

I’m not even mad at fall people for this. I believe their desire for fall is really an attempt to feel cool. Wishing won’t make it happen, but this annual nostalgia for fall that begins in earnest in August continues to grow stronger as our hot summers stretch into November.

This is a cultural not a climatological blog, and frankly I’m already exhausted by all this solstice and equinox talk. But all of us Southerners know that we won’t get real fall with its crisp, lower humidity coolness until November. Yes, we’ll have a short tease in September and usually a longer hint in October, but you can’t predictably be able to wear your cute flannel consistently until then.

If I was really on top of the trends, my first piece of New South Essays merch would be a plaid flannel tank top or maybe a pumpkin spice latte insulated metal tumbler with a beach scene on it. Come to think of it, this is probably how we got iced lattes to begin with.

All of our seasonal rules are changing. You can’t go by sports because what once was considered a fall sport, like, say, American football, is on the TV year round in some form. And baseball? They will be playing the World Series in snow this year. NASCAR, golf, basketball and hockey have seasons with no bearing on the weather at all it seems. Some of those sports are played indoors, others can shift their outdoor locations to weather neutral sites so they can keep right on doing their thing as long as the streaming and cable contracts run.

So we’ll send our younger two off to school this week and begin the mental adjustment to “summer is over.” But I long for one more summer experience to acknowledge the reality that in Atlanta, it’s still hot enough to do summer stuff.

If you’re confused about what season we’re in because you can’t keep up with solstices and equinoxes and the like, then subscribe to New South Essays. We’re just as confused as the rest of you, but we promise to let you know what we know when we know it.