PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY ALLAN LIBBY, TOWN OF SURF CITY, NC

     TOPSAIL ISLAND, NC – The temperature’s still warm. Not brutally hot, as it has been most of the summer, but warm. Good enough to make you sweat even in a T-shirt and shorts. The ocean is warmer still, at least in a relative sense. The water remains in the ‘80s, even as the nighttime air temps drop into the ‘60s.

     Yet there’s a decided feel that summer is ending. The practical end of summer – Labor Day – is still a week away, and the date that the calendar chooses as the finish date is still more than three weeks away.

      But on this small island, as up and down the North Carolina coast, you can feel it.

     The summer crowds aren’t merely dwindling. “The people just disappeared this week,” the lady who runs the gift shop next to the IGA in Surf City said Saturday. “They’re gone.”

     Likewise, the young woman at the register of Island Treasures down in Topsail Beach said, “Where is everybody? Nobody’s here.”

     They both know why. Most North Carolina children returned to school last week. Most college students had already returned. Vacations for those families are over, as far as the summer of 2010 concerned. Shops are having to make do with only Virginians and those from farther north whose children don’t return to school until after Labor Day.  By next week, those, too, will be gone. All that will be left are those couples too young or too old to worry about children getting on the bus.

     And the concern has shifted to hurricanes, whose peak season runs from late August through September. Danielle passed without fanfare this weekend, though the waves Saturday night were up, crashing around the Jolly Roger Pier in Topsail Beach. Now the attention is on Earl and Fiona and whoever will follow.

     But there is another sign of summer’s impending end, just as telling as the dropping temperatures or the dwindling crowds or the threatening storms.

     That is the inestimable sadness of summer’s end.

     Autumn is a wonderful time on an island, to be sure, and many prefer it. But it is a different, less exuberant, more restrained time than summer. For those who fancy themselves summer people, fall’s arrival means nothing less than the departure of the island’s spirit. Cold weather is around the corner now. Soon another year will have passed. On an island, there is nothing sadder than the calendar rolling into September. 

     That is in the air these days, palpable, and it is a bad feeling.

(NOT ACTUALLY MY BOOKCASE, THOUGH IT ALMOST COULD BE)

     You can’t pick up a magazine or newspaper, stroll through a bookstore or watch an afternoon TV show without seeing something about clutter.

     “Experts Share Their Secrets on De-Cluttering”

     “33 Ways to Organize Your Closet”

     “Get Rid of Your Junk – and Get Back Your Life!”

     And why not? We baby boomers are the perfect target for such help. As the most affluent generation this country has seen, we’ve bought the most stuff. And as a perhaps the most self-obsessed, we’ve kept it.

     Maybe that’s too much psycho-babble. Maybe we’re just flat-out pack rats. Or just too lazy to throw stuff away.

     Doesn’t matter. Point is, some of us have too much junk. Too much stuff.

     And by “some of us,” I mean me.

     Vicki and I are in the process of cleaning out at least some of the junk in our house. Some of it’s hers.

     And by “some of it,” I mean 5 percent.

     Most of us it’s mine. I’ve been going through hundreds and hundreds of books, getting rid of enough to stock a library. I’ve been getting rid of old clothes I haven’t worn in years – no, clothes I probably haven’t SEEN in years.  We’ve made numerous drop-offs at Goodwill.

     Doing so, by the way, is just what all the experts say: a liberating feeling.

     You do begin to feel that maybe, one day, your life will be your own again.

     The hardest thing has been the old papers. Stacks and stacks of them. Notes, bank records, the children’s fourth grade reports. Whatever. Piles and piles and piles of junk.

     I should just shred them all and be done with it.

     Instead, I find myself going through each one, as if it one will prove to be an original copy of the Declaration of Independence.

     So far, none has.

     I take it back: The hardest things to get rid of came yesterday: a pair of basketball shoes and a pair of softball cleats.  Haven’t worn either of them in five years.

     Maybe 10.

     In essence, I guess,  I was acknowledging my ball-playing days are gone.

     But I figure, what the heck.

     If the Yankees sign me to play centerfield, I’ll buy another pair.

     The worst day of any vacation is always the last one, a day of paradise lost and of the impending intrusion of the real world. Why does it have to end so soon?

     So it was for Vicki and me as we drove away from our annual vacation Saturday.

     Ah, but it would get so much worse.

     When we arrived home in Richmond, we saw … well, not our home. 

     Not at first, anyway. The yard was full of tree limbs and leaves, obscuring the house from the street.

     When did this become a rain forest?

     Ordinarily, we might get a glimpse down the driveway. The driveway, though, was now a parking lot for heavy equipment. A massive dump truck, the biggest “bucket” truck I’ve ever seen and two other pieces of equipment filled every square foot.

     It looked like they were building an interstate.

     We hadn’t been caught completely off-guard. A neighbor had called to say a storm came through Richmond Thursday night, and a pair of big trees now were laying – very gently – on our house and deck. It appeared damage was minimal, if any.

     Others clearly had fared worse. As we neared our home Saturday evening, we saw one home that had been almost split in half by a tree.

     But trees had continued to fall after the storm. Now four or five were down near our house – and these are 40-to-50-foot trees. The roots of one one were pulled from the earth.

     Our daughter and son-in-law, chainsaw in tow, had cleared a walkway. But this is now a major project. The side of the house is damaged. The roof might be. The big boys, with that big equipment, are to begin taking care of it today.

     Insurance is paying for it, of course. In fact, I just re-upped our policy the day before we went on vacation. I even saved $85 a year.

     I did that by increasing the deductible on our new policy – the part we pay if we put in a claim – from $500 to $1,000.

     Do I have timing or what?

     It could be that you’re not at all like me, that you listen to albums all the way through without incessantly replaying just one song over and over and over again.

     But I bet not.

     Many of us, I think, tend to pick a song that fits our mood and keep playing it incessantly. We back it up again and again on the CD player or the iPod until we simply can’t stand it anymore, then toss it to the back of our music closet to be found anew one distant day. Or maybe it’s gone for good.

     Growing up, I played Beatles albums all the way through. Unlike Stones’ LPs, they didn’t seem to have dead spots. (Granted, I skipped over “Flying” … and some of George’s things.) Same with “Tommy” and “Who’s Next” by the Who, a couple early.

     Elton John albums and, later, a couple Springsteens. I’m sure there were others.

     But a couple years ago, I noticed I had been playing Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” on the car CD for an eternity. Just that one song. Over and over. I’m hesitant to call any rock song brilliant – we’re not talking Mozart here – but “Bat Out of Hell” comes pretty close. I didn’t tire of it, anyway.

     But just the one song.

     I did gradually move on to, as I recall, Traffic’s “Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys.” Don’t know why. Simply liked it and played it for weeks.

     Springsteen’s “Rosalita” followed – though occasionally I would mix that up with his “Born to Run” or “Thunder Road.” Then it was on to Dire Strait’s “Brothers In Arms,” Sting’s “Fields of Gold,” then Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” and so forth. I can’t remember them all. Most recently it’s been Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer.”

     So why do we “one-plays” do what we do?

     Maybe we are setting our own mood, either enhancing a good one or changing a bad one.  But I’m not sure. While some are among my favorite songs, not all are. (And some of my favorites I never play, like the Animals’ “House of the Rising Son,” Clapton's "Layla", the Doors’ “Light My Fire” or U2’s “One”.) The ones I do pick – or maybe it’s that they pick me – tend to have strong melodies. They tend to be rock but often have a jazz or folk flavor. They often have strong guitar riffs.

     But I have no idea what the next favorite tune will by yet – or why.

     Anybody else?

Have favorite tunes you keep playing? Let us know what and why.

     Protecting gay employees from bias, formerly a “liberal” position in Virginia, took a move to the political center today – and maybe even to center-right.

     McDonnell, a conservative Republican, thus countered a position taken last week by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. The state’s top legal officer, another conservative Republican, had told state colleges and universities they had no legal basis for protecting gay students and employees from discrimination. 

     His advisory opinion led to a number of protests – and even ridicule of Virginia’s two leaders on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” (vodpod.com/watch/3207762-gaywatch-virginia-edition) 

     There’s nothing like being a national laughingstock to change your mind. 

     But probably more important was the business angle. Some had feared defense giant Northrop Grumman, which the state is trying to woo from California, and other businesses would stay away from a state perceived as being anti-gay. 

     Forget moral imperatives. 

     Dollars and cents, now that REALLY can be persuasive. 

     “It has caused too much fear and too much uncertainty in the business community and the higher-education establishment and among young people in the commonwealth – and I simply won't stand for that,” McDonnell told reporters, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. 

     Of course, Cuccinelli’s advisory opinion had echoed one by then-Attorney General McDonnell in 2006 that declared unconstitutional then-Governor Tim Kaine’s anti-bias order. 

     But that was then, and this is now. 

     McDonnell’s executive directive falls short of an executive order and is not backed by law. But it does give support to state employees who may feel they’ve been mistreated. While not specifying gays, it says: “ … discrimination against any class of persons without a rational basis is prohibited. … Civility, fair treatment, and mutual respect shall be the standard of conduct expected in state employment.”

     University leaders quickly supported the directive. But so did others. The objections are steadily falling away. It's hard to justify discrimination on any basis. 

     McDonnell campaigned toward the middle in getting elected last fall. 

     His decision yesterday seem to show that, at least politically, support for gay rights is now a centrist position, as well.

     Is the loss of Saturday mail delivery the worst thing that can happen to consumers?

     Hardly.

     Something worse has already happened. It’s evident to anyone who’s walked into a post office recently.

     More on that in a minute.

     First, let’s talk headlines. The U.S. Postal Service head proposed last week that Saturday delivery be cut to help with billions of dollars in losses every year.

     The problem is competing carriers like UPS and Federal Express, as well as – roll of drums, please – e-mail. As recently as 2006, the postal service delivered 213 billion pieces of mail a year. Now it’s 177 billion.

     Postage increases and employee cuts have made up for some lost revenue. Next apparently is cutting Saturday delivery.

     You would have thought the proposal was to line up civilians and shoot them on Saturdays.

     Outrage abounds. Bloggers lament that if a kid doesn’t get his birthday card from Grandma on Friday, he won’t have it in time for his Saturday party. He won’t get the card until Monday.

     Gee, do you think he’ll survive?

     But forget the Saturday issue. The bigger problem for us consumers is inside the post offices themselves. The drop-off in service over the past, say, 10 years has been astonishing.

     Once you could expect to be in and out within a few minutes. Now it might be 20.  Lines extend five, 10, 15 people long – while just one clerk works the counter.  

     And that clerk, beyond being merely methodical, seems almost comatose half the time.

     It’s an overgeneralization, I know. Many of the employees do bust a gut. And much of this is from reduced staffing.

     But there seems to be a postal attitude coming down from on high these days: Less service, more cost.

     Is it any wonder that people are leaving the postal service whenever possible?

     While you’re standing in that long line, stamps, trinkets and “collectibles” beckon you, along with Express Mail and Priority Mail boxes. Have you caught the latest trick with the priority boxes? More and more say “Flat Rate.”  They look like the old boxes, but use one and you’ll find you’re not paying the $5.35 or $6.55 you might expect. You’re paying $10.70.

     When you finally do reach the counter, you get hit with a required sales assault.  Would you like insurance with that, sir, to protect against loss or damage? Would you like delivery confirmation? Do you want a signature upon delivery? Do you need any stamps or mailing supplies?

     On and on it goes. You say “No” and they continue asking the question, anyway. By the end, and I’m not making this up (as you well know), the clerk is sometimes asking: Would you like to rent a postal box?

     Hmm, if I had come to rent a postal box, don’t you think I would have remembered to ask.

      At breakfast the other day, I learned something about Andy Taylor.
  
      No, not the sheriff of Mayberry. But yes, he has been kidded about the name – though only for his entire lifetime.

      This Andy Taylor was my editor at the Times-Dispatch before I left a few years back. He took early retirement last year. He still occasionally fills in as editor of an online business journal, plays golf and meets up with old colleagues – in this case, Steve Clark and me.

      What I found out is Andy no longer has a telephone.
 
      Technically, he no longer has a so-called “land line” – a traditional phone that plugs into the wall. I consider that the “real phone,” though. He and his whole family do still have cell phones.

      Turns out a lot of people have junked their land line. A National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) in 2008 showed 20.2 percent of American homes had already ditched them. 

      Nearly as telling: Even among those keeping land lines, 14.5 percent make nearly all their calls on cell phones anyway.

     But most of the switchers, at least anecdotally, seem to be Gen Xers and younger
generations. Baby boomers and seniors still hang on to the “real phones.” Many of us have both types.

      So Andy’s story was interesting. He’s definitely no Gex Xer.

      Why did he do it? “This was about the time I was getting ready to retire, so I was looking at ways to trim costs,” he says. Together, his land line, family plan for cell phones and cable computer service ran between $250 and $300 a month.

      Dropping the phone saved only $30 a month. “But it was a savings,” he says, “and we found we could get along just fine without a home-based telephone.”

      No longer would his number be in a phone book. But those who called the old land line heard a recorded message giving them his cell number.

      The phone companies, by the way, seem fine with all the switching.

      Last fall, the chief executive of Verizon Communications told an investor conference that his company simply no longer was concerned with telephones that are connected with wires. Increasingly, cell phones or phone service through the Internet are replacing them.

      Late in the year, AT&T went further. It asked the Federal Communications Commission to free it from being required to maintain a landline infrastructure. AT&T even asked the FCC to set a deadline for completely phasing out lines entirely.

      That may not happen right away. But it’s clear that land lines will one day be a
communications dinosaur.

      Meanwhile, Andy says the only drawback is the one we’re all aware of: cell reception is not always so great. But he doesn’t pay extra for long distance – and doesn’t receive telemarketing calls during dinner.

      “Making the move,” he says, “is not as scary as it seems.”

      Possibly. I admire his courage, though.

      It still seems a big jump to get off the dinosaur.

Our view to the ocean this past weekend

TOPSAIL ISLAND, N.C.

     There is something about an island in winter, when many of the shops are closed and most of the other tourists are not about – and when the calendar says you shouldn’t be here, either.

     The last weekend in February can be brutal on the North Carolina coast. But some years, when the sun is out and the breezes are down, it’s not at all a bad time to visit. These past few days on Topsail Island, in fact, were downright pleasant. Highs in the 50s. Sweater weather, rather than parka weather.

     We come often to Topsail – I’ve written a book about the island – but our trips are usually during the other three seasons. Winter has an entirely different feel.

     There are only a few thousand year-rounders and, because the island is a marathon-length 26 miles long, they’re spread out. Even adding in some weekend tourists, there simply aren’t that many people. (Of course, even summers are not terribly crowded on this somewhat remote island – though old-timers, who remember when there actually was almost no one, equate Topsail with New York City now.)

     We drove virtually the length of the island both Saturday and Sunday.  

     Topsail Beach at the southern end seems almost like a ghost town in February, though some people did gather for a church service Sunday morning. The few shops down at this end are all closed, waiting until March to reopen and, of course, until Memorial Day to flourish. Saturday afternoon, the man behind the counter of the Jolly Roger fishing pier said no one was out on the pier. Now that the breezes were picking up, no one would be. I bought a couple bottles of water, thinking it may have been his only sales of the day.

     We drove back up the island and stopped in the IGA grocery store in Surf City for coffee and breakfast items. This is the middle town and here some stores are open, if on limited hours. Only a few people were in the IGA. We went on to dinner at Sears Landing, a small restaurant on the Intercoastal Waterway, and found a few more people, several dozen, in fact. Still it was easy to find parking, rarely the case in summer. And the outside deck, though enclosed and heated for winter dinner-goers, was empty.

     When we emerged from dinner, the sun was going down. So was the temperature. The winds were up and now suddenly, the air had a sting to it. In case we had forgotten, this was February at the beach.

     We drove the rest of the island in the dark, to North Topsail Beach, for the night. The northernmost of the three towns, unlike the others, North Topsail has no shops and no real center. Homes are newer, bigger and more spread out. But it is just as beautiful as the rest of the island – some say more so – and you’ll find aficionados of each of the different towns.

     We drove up the thin island, almost to the end, in ever increasing darkness. Fewer and fewer lights were on. Fewer cars were about. The island seemed dark, chilly, even ominous.

     A friend, Karen, had lent us her home. Beautiful home. (You can see it at www.vrbo.com/134966.) Our bedroom and the very large kitchen were on the second floor, three stories off the ground (island homes are built a level up), and what a vantage point. In the morning, here was the Topsail we knew again. The  view to the ocean, beyond a community gazebo, was extraordinary, the rising sun shimmering off the water, nary a soul about.

     We walked the beach, encountering only a few people: a runner, a family of five and, showing the changing nature of a barrier island, the operator of a Caterpillar machine, who was spreading sand brought in by dredging the nearby inlet.

     We left early afternoon yesterday, reluctantly. The afternoon seemed to be shaping up as even warmer than Saturday’s.

     I tried to convince myself the weather would soon become miserable.

     This came to me last week after a visit to the doctor’s. There’s an invention I really need. I thought we’d have it by now.

     No, it’s not jet packs.

     Jetpacks are the famous invention we never got. (There’s even a music group, We Were Promised Jetpacks.) Remember “The Jetsons” – everyone in the future flew around with them. Well, “The Jetsons” first aired in 1962. So where are the jetpacks? Why haven’t the guys in lab coats taken care of this?

     My invention desire is far simpler than jetpacks. A doctor was telling me one small aid for lower back pain is to remove your wallet from your hip pocket when you sit down. I’d heard that before.  Wallets are so big they throw off the body’s alignment.

     I know this is true because I once saw it in Mad magazine. Years ago, Mad did a series of cartoons on future afflictions, like oversized fingertips from all the buttons we will be pushing – and aching hips from overstuffed wallets.

     They couldn’t print that in Mad if it wasn’t true, you know.

     I pulled out my own wallet. I had only a few bills in it, plus 10 family pics (which, judging by the children’s faces, I haven’t updated since about 1998).

     It was the hard-plastic cards that were doing me in, though: driver’s license, credit card, debit card, Ukrop’s card, Barnes & Noble card, Borders card, Dick’s Sporting Goods card, Triple-A card, CVS card, Choice Hotels card, and a library card from Wilmington, N.C. (I actually had removed three local library cards a while back.)

     Even the softer, thinner cards were part of the problem: car insurance card, health insurance card, AARP card, Marriott card, Virginia Blood Services donor card, Staples Rewards card, two business cards and a Sheetz coffee card.

     Combined, these 20 cards are actually thicker than my wallet. Considerably, in fact.

     It dawned on me: I need just one card for my wallet. Just one card with coding that covers all these needs. One card that could help my aching back.

     Where is that invention? I’ve read – several times – that universal cards are coming.

     So where are they?

     Let’s get moving, lab coat guys.

What’s the invention you most want? Let us know below.

     What is it about the Winter Olympics that, despite all the groveling by NBC to get us to watch them, always makes them so easy not to watch?

     Ironically, maybe the best description came from an NBC show. Alec Baldwin’s sardonic character on “30 Rock,” an NBC boss, recently said: "That's what I'm talking about, empathy. It's about as useless as the Winter Olympics.” He paused. “This February on NBC."

     Useless. That’s exactly it. The Winter Olympics don’t have the USA basketball team or Australian swimmers or the Cuban boxers or the Jamaican sprinters or the world’s soccer teams. That’s all Summer Olympics stuff.

     The Winter Olympics have curling.

     Have you looked at curling? It’s like shuffleboard … without the excitement. Other winter sports are just as weird. Ice Dancing? Sure, it takes talent and the results can be beautiful – but that’s true of playing Chopin. The Biathalon? It combines cross-country skiing and rifle-shooting.

     Why not throw in car repairs? You could have a triathlon.

     And yet …

     These Winter Olympics have been strangely NOT boring this time. Not even completely useless. Here are five reasons why – one for each Olympic ring:

1. They’re in the Western Hemisphere. Olympics in Europe or Asia are tape-delayed, reducing excitement. Many are seen live this time.

2. The main TV competition, “American Idol,” hit a dead zone the last two nights with three hours of badly edited highlights. Most seemed to be of coming scenes or, conversely, of already shown scenes. And when you get down to reality shows – real reality – what beats the Olympics?

3. They have blundering, hypocrisy and, sadly, tragedy. Organizers kept visitors far from the Olympic flame, behind a large fence, before moving the fence in and build a viewing ramp. But they never did respond properly to the death of Georgian luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili. They immediately changed the dangerous course – but blamed the death on “athlete error.” Very classy, guys.

4. American athletes have lived up to the hype. There’s the sheer greatness of Shani Davis and snowboarder Shaun White, as well as the persistence of skier Bodie Miller and of the incredible skating machine Apolo Ono … who turns out to be no relation at all to Yoko.  

5. And talk about overcoming odds. American skier Lindsey Vonn won gold despite an injured shin. And Slovenian cross-country skier Petra Majdic – who slipped in practice, fell 10 feet onto rocks and was rushed to the hospital for x-rays – returned that day to win bronze. “For me,” she said, “this medal is gold with little diamonds.”

     So far, at least, the Olympics, too, are winners.