Accentuate the positive

The signs have been sprouting all over for the past few weeks. I've been ignoring them, but they're there.

Newspaper circulars. Job openings. Random commentary overheard at work. An earlier twilight.

Since early this year, construction has been going strong on a new school adjacent to our townhome complex. It's the Farrell B. Howell School, a K-8 structure that was bustling with students Monday. As I drove near the school's entrance, I spied eager students tugging at their parent's hand, excited to experience the first day of school.

Elsewhere around town, the Speer Boulevard sidewalks on the far side of Auraria Campus no longer are bare. Instead, individual locks snake around poles securing a smattering of scooters whose owners I imagine are sitting in a classroom listening to a lecture. Maybe they're in one of my favorite little coffee joints on campus, the best place to go when temperatures dropped and snow began to fly. Perhaps they're in the library, a place I never was very familiar with during my six-year stint at Metro State (blush).

Perusing the paper, I have seen back-to-school sales: bargains on hot plates, mini-microwaves, twin sheet sets. There's no escaping it, even as the first of September inches closer and closer. Students talked of the dreaded first day of school. At a neighborhood restaurant, I heard a manager saying his establishment was short staffed since he lost two employees who were going back to college.

I was in denial until I felt a chill last evening. It's time to face it
. . . summer quickly is coming to an end.

On the bright side, autumn, a truly magnificent season, is just around the corner.