The Week Ahead: South Jersey Turns the Page to September

You can feel it before you can see it. The light goes a little longer and lower in the late afternoon. The tomato stands start throwing in a mum or two next to the corn. Somewhere in every neighborhood this week, a kid is complaining about homework for the first time since June, and a parent is secretly delighted. September is coming to South Jersey, and here's what's waiting for us.

The last big shore weekend is in sight

The big turn is the calendar itself. This is the last Sunday of August, which means we walk into the final stretch before Labor Day — the holiday lands a week from tomorrow, Monday, September 7. For our shore towns that's the traditional last big weekend of the season, the one that closes the books on beach-badge sales and boardwalk lines. If you've been meaning to get down to Wildwood or Ocean City or Atlantic City one more time before the crowds thin, the window is right in front of you. And a reminder from every lifeguard on the coast: respect the water. We've had moderate rip-current risk in recent days, and the ocean doesn't check the calendar.

Closer to home, the fall-festival machine is already warming up. Out in the Sicklerville section of Gloucester Township, the Camden County Technical Schools campus hosted a Food Truck and Craft Fair Fall Festival this weekend — free admission, scarecrow-making kits, pumpkin painting, and enough food trucks to ruin your appetite for dinner. It's the first of many. Once September gets rolling, there won't be a Saturday between here and Halloween without a church lot, a firehouse, or a Main Street throwing open the tables.

The sports calendar isn’t a distraction from real life around here. It is real life.Max Cedar

A loaded week on the fields

The schools are the other big story: districts across Camden, Burlington, and Gloucester counties are settling into the new year — the nervous first-day photos taken, the bus routes figured out. If you drive, this is your annual reminder that the yellow buses are back and the crossing guards are at their posts. Slow down. And on the fields, it's loaded: high school football is officially back under the Friday-night lights, the Phillies are riding a four-game streak and clinging to a wild-card spot, and the Eagles finalize their 53-man roster tonight before opening at home against the Commanders on September 13.

A few things worth doing this week: get to a farm stand while the Jersey corn and tomatoes are still at their peak, because that clock is running out. Check on the older folks on your block as the season turns. And if your town has a festival, a fundraiser, or a first home game — go. Bring a neighbor. September asks us to buckle down, but it's also the best month South Jersey has. Don't spend all of it in the calendar app. See you out there.

Based on reporting from The Sun Papers, Patch, WJRZ, and Gazette staff research.