Downward slope

Katydid, aka bush cricket

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Even with all the rain we’ve had, a few leaves on the plane trees are browning and falling off, and the weeds and ivy are growing a tad more slowly these days.  Seeds are gaining prominence over flowers. And yet the woods and suburban roadsides still resemble  very green jungle so thick that it seems hard to believe that autumn freezes will wither it  into a dead brown.

In the evening we’re hearing the first choruses of katydids, especially loud at the end of hot days, and there’s the slight dimming of the afternoon light compared to a week or two ago. Soon will come the back-to-school ads. And friends in Vermont have been touting the fall foliage in the Taconic Range.

Children in Chicago surround an ice cream vendor in 1909.

Summer is the time of  good goo: Ice-cream cones drip onto your chin; hot-dog mustard  turns your face and hands an unsightly yellow; corn-on-the-cob butter slicks up the table; popsicles melt onto your sticky hands as you try to finish them before they turn completely into liquid.  And that fading favorite of kids at summer county fairs and amusement parks -- cotton candy, instant diabetes!

Messy but happy experiences.