It's not the end of summer, for sure. But for the past few days it has felt a bit like the beginning of the end.

And a most welcome feeling it is. You must have noticed that indefinable crispness in the air. Anyone driving to work on Thursday morning with the windows open -- or better yet, riding a bike -- can hardly have missed the downright cool edge to the wind -- as if someone had air-conditioned the great outdoors and turned the thermostat down.

The whirring swan song of the cicada is heard in the land. And is it just our imagination, or do the birdcalls sound a little perkier, voicing a little more awareness of the need to start thinking about packing up for that trip south one of these days?

August is only half over, of course. The official beginning of autumn still lies more than five weeks away, and school -- later now than it used to be, thanks to the state legislature -- doesn't start for another 10 days. It will get hot again. So we're jumping the gun here. It's too soon to speak of the end of summer.

But at least it's no longer too early to imagine it.