And suddenly, summer is over. Tuesday brings the return of students to public classrooms, school buses to the road, homework, football games, and fall.

As summers go, this one provided outstanding weather. No prolonged hot spells. Cool nights. A bit of excessive heat and humidity, in brief places; but unusually pleasant times, overall.

But now schools, families, civic groups and churches put away their summer schedules and prepare to take up the fuller calendars that dictate the pace of the rest of the year.

Thousands of our young people attend local public and private schools. Among them are hundreds of girls and boys entering a classroom for the first time, waiting anxiously at the roadside for the bus that will take them to their kindergarten classes.

When you leave for work Tuesday morning, keep an extra thought in mind for our impulsive and uncertain youngest students. School’s open … drive carefully. It bears repeating every year. ...