officially fall

We started to school, when I was a child, the Tuesday after Labor Day every year.To my mind, summer still begins the Friday before Memorial Day and ends on Labor Day.
These days, though, summer grows shorter and shorter. School supply lists are posted in local stores while Fourth of July decorations are still on shelves nearby.
Many of the school supplies we had are now extinct. Some, like the Big Chief tablet have been declared politically incorrect. Others are still around but not so easy to find. Take those big, fat pencils we used in the early years... I looked everywhere before I found some for my grandbaby when she started to kindergarten a couple of years back.
Old school cigar boxes would probably be frown on as a receptacle for school supplies and what kid wouldn't rather have a cartoon character or super hero box. Not me, though, I much prefer the boxes cigars actually come in to any or kind, however cute it might be. The leaves have yet to start falling as I write this. But they don't herald the coming of fall for me. It's the school supplies.