Song of Summer Ending

When my children were young, I loved reading "Charlotte’s Web" aloud to them and was always struck by the poetic passage at the beginning of Chapter 15.

"The crickets sang in the grasses. They sang the song of summer’s ending, a sad monotonous song. ‘Summer is over and gone,’ they sang. ‘Over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying."

In Park Slope we don’t need crickets to tell us that summer is coming to an end. There are already too many reminders that sleepy summer days will soon be replaced by the ADD of real life.

The morning crowds at will return. It will be impossible to park again. The streets will be filled with stroller-happy parents, kids on scooters and Food Coop members pushing shopping carts accompanied by orange vested Coop workers.

There are more signs still, it seems that everywhere you turn things say, "Summer is ending." The streets are filling up with people I haven't seen since the spring. Many are still tan, wearing attire suitable for beach days in Wellfleet in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Kids are back from camp looking taller, healthier and more independent after weeks away from their parents. College-bound teenagers are getting ready to leave the Slope for academic horizons. Everyone, it seems, is bracing for the inevitable intensity of fall.

In the weeks ahead school will start up again. Groan. While kids dread getting back into the swing of things, it's the parents who mourn the return to tension-filled mornings: homework and the other stresses of school life.

All over the Slope, newly minted ninth graders are getting ready to begin high school. After the tortuous school admission process of last year, the kids will take subways into Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. My daughter is on that track and she will transition from New Voices, her warm and fuzzy middle school to Edward R. Murrow High School, a big complicated school with 4,000 students in the Mid-wood section of Brooklyn, a quick trip on the Q train.

So excitement mixes with fear and anticipation as the summer days wane. There are also mixed feelings about the upcoming 10th anniversary of 9/11. Many of us don't feel ready to relive that terrible time. I haven't heard yet what local Slope churches, synagogues and other cultural institutions are planning on that Sunday. But I do know that many feel the need for some sort of public ritual while others say they want to memorialize the day privately.

As often happens during the summer, new stores and restaurants open "softly" in anticipation of fall crowds. , the new restaurant on Seventh Avenue and 1st Street, which serves buffalo, lamb, bison, beef, veggie and turkey burgers, appears to be an unequivocal hit.

Also newly opened is Rivet, on Seventh Avenue near Union Street, is a clothing shop featuring chic jeans, shirts, and shoes. There's also on Fifth Avenue near 6th Street, which boasts beautiful off-the-rack and made-to-order clothing by a noted Brooklyn designer. A new Greek restaurant is open near Berkeley Place, has moved to a Seventh Avenue space near Union, a huge pet supply superstore called Unleased (i.e. Petland) is open for business, as is a bridal shop for a bride with any sexual orientation with great and oft-photographed front celebrating New York's same sex marriage legislation.

Indeed, there is much to look forward to in Autumn as it is probably the most beautiful season in Park Slope. We are blessed to have Frederick Law Olmstead’s magnificent park when summer changes into fall. And on the Slope’s tree-lined streets, the multi-colored leaves mesh pontilistically with the brownstone, red brick, limestone and stained glass of this 19th century neighborhood.

In other ways too, the Slope welcomes the change of seasons. The stores on Seventh Avenue will soon be festooned with Halloween costumes, ghoulish make-up and party decorations.

Finally, fall brings with it the realization that the children of Park Slope are growing up. Last year’s baby’s are this year’s toddlers. Yesterday’s pre-schoolers are lining up at P.S. 321. Elementary begets middle school And perhaps most shocking of all, an inordinate number of the kids of Park Slope have become bona-fide teenagers.

It often seems that over the summer the girls become women and the boys became men. They look like stretched-out versions of themselves as children. How quickly the years sped by! Just yesterday they were being pushed around in McClaren strollers on Seventh Avenue sipping from sippy cups and eating string cheese.

How did all this happen?

It's been years since I read "Charlotte's Web" to my children, a book which depicts a magical childhood on a farm, a world away from 21st century Park Slope. But its themes of loss and change always resonate with me as I anticipate with mixed emotions Park Slope transitions from yet another summer to yet another fall.