IT SEEMS as if summer just started, but already the season is rocketing to a close. Children have been out of school for more than two months and will be returning to class in a week or so. The ESU Summer Theatre has gone dark, the municipal band has finished its season and the Brown Bag Lunch programs at the library are over for another year.
But the real sign of the change of the social season — the calendar insists that summer will not end until late September — is the completion this weekend of the 2007 Lyon County Free Fair. The fair is one of the bookends of summer in the Flint Hills. The season starts with the Flint Hills Rodeo on the first weekend in June and ends with the last grandstand event at the Lyon County Fairgrounds. That event, the demolition derby, will be Saturday night. After the derby, the last booths and commercial exhibits will close and the carnival rides will carry their last customers for this year.
Already the fair is winding down. The livestock sale was Wednesday and the fair exhibits in the Anderson Building will be released Friday morning. The last real 4-H event will be tonight’s rodeo. So today is the last chance to see all of the fair and to experience fully the sweet chaos of summer.
Oh, the warm weather will hang around for weeks to come. It may even get downright hot and dry. Labor Day will sound a faint echo of summer’s freedom, but Emporia’s face will already be turned toward autumn, as stores rush to unveil their Halloween merchandise.
If you haven’t been to the fair yet, don’t wait any longer.
Summer is almost gone.