Whoever said summer was here to stay was wrong, I'm proud to say.

Old Mother Nature brought us cooler weather last weekend, with lower humidity to go along with it, and let me tell you, I was proud to see Saturday night at the Pee Wee football games that there was hot chocolate available.

Now football season is really here.

Every team in the county has now had a win, and people are filling the stadiums (not that one was ever needed for the other to happen, mind you). But along with that weather brought some of the need for long sleeves, and/or sweaters.

Why, I even saw some folks in the stadiums with blankets n all right!

The leaves were beginning to fall at the Greenville Country Club during their annual three-man-scramble tourney last weekend, and more than one golfer in shorts had said he wished he'd worn long slacks instead.

Even the animals know that what goes around comes around.

The deer dogs in my neighbor's yard are beginning that familiar bellow and bay one hears as they jump on the trail of a big buck, now that the night air is causing frost to appear in one's breath.

And Monday I didn't seem to miss the freon I haven't replaced in the air conditioner on my Taurus.

Now if the pollen could just get gone, we would have it made, wouldn't we?

My lovely wife Cindy was out of pocket most of last week, in fact she was in the hospital on the edge of pneumonia, and now is back at home, trying to get back into the swing of things.

Absence does more than just make the heart grow fonder, it hits you with reality in the face like a ton of bricks!

I sure am proud when she is the one doing the schoolhouse shuffle in the morning and again in the evening, and I don't mind saying it's tough to be a mom.

Yep, I found out the hard way last week, trying to fill her shoes while running in mine at the same time.

It just don't work too well.

Hats of to you, wife-mate (as Squire MacGuire says).

Now with two homecomings behind us, we only have three more to go, and this week's is Ft. Dale Academy.

Ain't it amazing how time flies? I never used to think that way, especially when I was in school. I always thought it just dragged on along.

Now, as I approach the ending of the first third of my life (I refuse to call 40 middle-aged), it seems as though those pages are flying off the calendar faster than they can be replaced.

Slow down a little, let some moss grow on your shoes Father Time!

Anyway, I talked to an old friend of mine who not too long ago got his walking papers from the military.

Tarek Jabbar, a Greenville native and former local police officer, recently became re-activated into the Air Force at Maxwell, and said to me on Sunday evening that he may soon be shipped abroad, although at the present time the 42nd Security Forces Squadron, to which he is attached is working 14-hour shifts right in Maxwell.

I ask that you all remember him, as well as all of our other military members in your thoughts and prayers.

Pray for their speedy and safe return to the States and their loving families at home.

Remember too the rescue workers that are still diligently working to search through the rubble at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to find any glimmer of life still managing to survive, now some three weeks after our country was so brutally and cowardly attacked by terrorists.

And so, time draws to a close on another chapter of rambling on the part of your local sports correspondent.

Until next week, if there is a game to be played, and you look really hard, you should find me out there, way out in Deep Left Field.