And here we are on that ride again, the Slip-n-Slide of late August that wants to whip us from a grand season into a bleak one.

The sky is dark by 8 p.m. Back-to-School signs are up on store windows. The buzz of summer is still there but now over it, you can hear the mournful groans of a darker season that will be upon us with the speed and stealth of an auk.

Which I believe is a diving bird but it could be some kind of tree.

There was big news this summer. The sudden departure of Lewiston City Administrator Jim Bennett, the burning of the Cowan Mill, that inexplicable rash that appeared on my right knee in late July, etc.

As a responsible journalist, I feel it incumbent upon me to dissect some of this news — to try and put it into a perspective that transcends the season.

But since I’m sort of hazy on the definition of the word “incumbent,” I’m going in a different direction. Specifically, I’ll try to define the summer through that fantastic summertime game: Random Stuff Found in My Old Notebooks!

If read in order, these could provide you with some sense of what the summer really was. If read with enough rum in your Kool-Aid, you just might find the meaning of life.

And you thought Slip-n-Slide was fun.

“I’m not into that myself, but a lot of people are.”

My springtime search for a reputable nudist colony? No. A comment on news that the stars of Woodstock (mostly the living ones) would be coming to Maine. Talk about a blazing start to the new season! There’s only up from here!

“It popped way up the air and then rolled way down here.”

Wait, what? Although it sounds like a comment that could be applied to those stars of Woodstock, sadly it is not. The remark refers to a manhole cover that blew out of the street and sailed down Cedar Street in downtown Lewiston. Remember that? Awesome, right?

“I never had to worry about falling off.”

Falling off what, wild child of summer? The bitching waves? The new motorcycle? The rainbows themselves?

Alas, no. That statement was delivered by a young girl whose bicycle was stolen while she slept. The story of that thievery came on the heels of a similar heist where a fiend stole a bike owned by an 80-something woman who had owned her ride since the day after the invention of the wheel. Bike pirates were everywhere at the start of the season.

“It’s a reminder of how quickly…”

My favorite of the orphaned sentiments found in my notebooks, I still have no clue what it means. A reminder of how quickly a reporter can run out of ink? Of how quickly a notebook can blow up in your hands? Of how quickly you just lose interest?

Moving on.

“Black and 3 inches long. I put it in a coffee can.”

The diabolical crime I never quite tracked down! Oh, the horror of it!

But it’s not. This was the story of a Lewiston man who found a scorpion in a downtown apartment and lived to deliver one weird sentence to reside in my notebook for months.

“I’ve got to toss them the keys to my car and give them back my gun.”

Wasn’t it amazing how I convinced that brooding fugitive to give up the chase? It’s funny how I never got any sort of medal for it. Maybe it’s because the line came from the chief of police in Lewiston as he prepared to turn over his badge.

“It actually looked healthy.”

Said the woman who almost didn’t live to regret what she’d just eaten. Only it was not that at all. It was a line from a woman who did battle with a rabid fox. And didn’t eat it, I presume.

All alone on a page with no context at all: “Vicki.”

Vicki, if I was supposed to call and didn’t, I apologize. I’ve been busy as hell and … well, you know how crazy things were in the early part of summer.

“There’s a cluster that just settled over the area.”

Yeah, that’s the crazy I’m talking about. It was rain for all of June and July. It just sort of hung out there, the uninvited guest who drinks way too many beers at your barbecue and then pees on everything.

“Right now, there’s a car stuck under the trestle.”

Which was later blamed on that uninvited barbecue guest.

“When she’s ready, she’ll come.”

The waitress, you mean? The wife who walked out five years ago? No. This one pertains to ghosts spotted along Route 26 in Poland.

“Flips, catches ice, balances…”

I have no idea what this string of words indicate. It was all alone on a notebook page with no direct neighbors. I suspect it may be related to the yearly bartender contest at T.G.I. Fridays. If not, I may have things to apologize for, or possibly to brag about.

“All I felt was boom!”

More things for me to brag about? No. This was from the start of the Cowan Mill fire when the whole city of Lewiston seemed to go a little crazy for a while. Administrator Bennett had just been fired and now an historic chunk of the city was burning. And apparently, going boom.

“The kid apparently panicked.”

Well, of course he did! Who wouldn’t, what with Bennett getting canned, the mill burning down, manholes flying everywhere and scorpions crawling all over downtown? In truth, I never figured out what the line refers to.

“Pistol whipped.”

Never figured out that one, either.

“Do they bite?”

Or that one. And looking back, I’d really like to know what the answer is.

“That wasn’t part of the original plan.”

Ditto: a mystery.

“We need to wait until things dry out.”

Don’t know what the story was with this one either, but one thing is clear: somewhere out there is the skeleton of a very articulate and patient man or woman who waited way too long for things to dry out.

“Some women can pull off the gaudiness.”

A catty hooker on Walnut Street in Lewiston? Heck, no. There are no hookers on Walnut Street in Lewiston. This was the Sun Journal’s own Tammy Chamberland talking about the latest in summer footwear fashion.

“These things are nasty.”

Hookers on Bates Street? Heck, no. Tammy again, talking about another pair of sandals.

“No credit card, no money, no phone.”

I never figured out why this line was in my notebook, but it may have been the list of reasons why I couldn’t take a really great vacation this year.

“Frogs live in ruts, deer come to drink.”

It sounds a lot like the start of my summertime haiku, but no. It’s the thoughts of an all-terrain park owner describing what wildlife creatures totally dig about huge mud holes. The mud holes in which I nearly got my beautiful Suzuki stuck many times over the course of the season. The beautiful Suzuki which transformed a washed out summer into a glorious one.

And finally: “We saw stuff 200 feet up in the air.”

At last, the stars of Woodstock! Only, it isn’t. This was a man describing the whirling debris from a late August thunderstorm. And since that was just a week ago, I guess this wraps up our review of the summer that was. If there is a more concise and accurate way to describe it all, my stray notebooks cannot impart it.

Except maybe with this one line: “You really shouldn’t do that kind of thing with a toothbrush.”

My friends, you can’t make this stuff up.

Not that you’d want to.