With one more week of summer left, and with Islanders greeting one another on the streets and in the coffee shops again, that familiar old question tumbles out: What happened to summer?

July and August were anchored by beautiful beach days and soft, foggy nights punctuated by the slow clanging of the bell buoy off East Chop. Daisies, lupines, coreopsis, butterfly weed and black-eyed Susans met their appointments with summer in perfect succession. There was good swimming and there were good dinners on the porch with grilled swordfish and cold littlenecks and tomatoes still warm from the August sun.

What happened to summer? It just slipped away, that’s all. We turned around and it was gone.