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I wanted to slip this in before August 1st. Every first day of that month, I remember a bike ride back from McClure's Ponds--Brian's familiar with these former Princeton Day School Ponds. I was in the habit of doing the 16-mile loop, sometimes every day for days running. This, I think, was 1976. I was 15, when the large husky-Lab mix, think it was, followed me from the ponds all the way to Lawrence, running behind my bike the whole way. That's how much that dog bonded with me.

So, I get home. Mom, this dog came back with me. "All the way from Princeton!?"

"We have to find the owner. It's lost."

But the dog found me and that was kind of special. We found the owners within a day. They put a Lost Dog ad out or something.

So every August 1st.....

Anyway, it's also when summer's getting on. Happy to report this summer has slowed down for me, so it feels real. Some people I talk to. Where they actually live isn't real anymore. You can't separate home from season.

Imagine. A nation of homeless people. People become schizophrenic. Without reality. Lost dogs looking for their owner. Unable to comprehend they are their own.

Happy to report also my son and his friends go places.

And Laurie's report from Lake Hopatcong. Plenty of hybrid stripers on herring off the points. Six and seven pounders. Lou Marcucci makes the news a lot. He recently caught a seven-pound, five-ounce walleye, and his walleye is not the only catch. Bass get caught too. Of course they do.