Editor’s Note

August hums along with a strange character all its own. It opens in the hazy, willowy breezes of summer and closes on the urgent gusts of fall, at once an ending and a beginning. The calendar says we start a new year in January, but for most of our lives, the dawn of another year is really in September, with the start of the school term.

At the same time, we spend a lot of August holding fast to what is fading—balmy nights by the water, fresh-picked corn crackling on a grill, fireflies bouncing over tall grass at dusk.

Our issue this month embraces these two Augusts. The last gasp of summer gets star treatment with “Itchy to Itsy-Bitsy” (page 34) about how swimwear has evolved over the last 100 years, with whimsical illustrations by artist Edwin Fotheringham. And “Countdown to the Fair” (page 26) honors 4-H, which leads into harvest season. Readers wrote of 4-H as an experience that taught them about life in ways school never could.

I thank them, and all who share their memories with us every month, reminding us that a life well-remembered is always welllived. I love the small, unguarded details that reveal a world of personality—such as the closing thought Philip Lindstrom offers in a letter that summed up his amazing life, from a oneroom school to a career in the civil service, in six paragraphs: “Please excuse the 90-year-old brain and fingers and 70-year-old typewriter for spelling or other goofs.”

Sir, you can write to me on that trusty typewriter anytime. •