After some oppressively humid summer days, this apple bite of fall-like morning coolness and breezy days has been welcome. I would not mind if summer dwells, with its short-sleeve weather and days that are still hours past 4 p.m. We know those seeming four-hour days of sunlight are coming. But they can wait forever as far as I’m concerned.

This summer, I’ve gotten more used to the push-button crosswalks near Wiscasset’s Route 27 and now downtown, too. Have you? I still give a slight, thankful wave to the stopped motorists as I cross, even though now they stop due to lights and not just because they saw someone ready to cross. It just seems the polite thing to do, like waving to people on other boats.

The non-crash-related backups I have seen on Route 1 this summer have been fewer, shorter and faster moving. As I wrote earlier this summer and the rest of it has borne out,  there are still plenty of out-of-state vehicles around the region, despite or perhaps due to the pandemic, since Maine’s COVID-19 numbers are less scary than some, by far.

If we keep wearing masks and sanitizing our hands and surfaces, we are part of keeping it that way.

So this Labor Day weekend, go out to where you feel you safely can, to enjoy the first of these last few weeks of summer. And if you are still staying home, you have not wasted summer. You have done what you felt was right for you, your family and, for many still, your co-workers.

Week’s positive parting thought: Every month we pass on the calendar, we are one month closer to 2020 being over!