As if on cue for the sixty-seventh Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, the fish are running again.

There was a bluefish feeding frenzy at the Cape Pogue gut late one afternoon last week, one of those churning blitzes where you could throw out an old shoe and catch a fish. And out on Nantucket Sound, boats have been lined up like summer traffic at Five Corners as fishermen chase the silvery schools of bonito now flashing through the cooling saltwater. There are reports of stripers being caught on the north shore.

At a moment when the gulf separating our two dominant political parties seems never to have been wider, we are particularly saddened by the death of longtime West Tisbury seasonal resident Roger D. Fisher.

Even people who have never heard of the distinguished Harvard Law professor will nonetheless recognize the name of his popular book, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. The perennial best-seller, co-authored with William Ury in 1981, became the bible of constructive negotiation for a generation.

Signs that summer is coming to an end:

Milkweed pods have burst in meadows and at marshy edges around the Island, scattering their seed-strewn silky puffs.

Tiny wild purple and white asters have begun to bloom.

The light has changed, casting shadows at different angles now late in the afternoon.

Bluefish are running again off Cape Pogue.

Cool mornings demand a light sweater.

Parking spaces are suddenly available in down-Island towns.

It’s a mistake to think that all significant events are unusual or out of the commonplace, or surrounded by some sensational circumstances. Take a man or a woman rounding a corner on a bicycle. That looks, maybe, like a pretty routine occurrence. But perhaps it isn’t.

Imagine a fully-accredited environmental studies program where as many as two hundred college students, faculty and graduate students would spend the academic year using the Island as a science laboratory and boosting the off-season economy with a meal plan supported by local restaurants.

A pilot project with those estimable objectives is now on the drawing board for next year. One important detail: it’s happening on Nantucket.

Not enough swimming. Too little time with summer friends. Clamming, kayaking, sailing: see swimming.

Summer’s on the wane, outgoing ferries are full, incoming ferries less so, and the sun sets earlier these days. It’s time to look around and say where did the summer go? It went the way all summers do, too fast.