The long days of summer are winding down, the cicadas vocal rattle mixing with the morning songbirds, the katydids and crickets adding resonance to the warm nights. As a kid the noticeable arrival of these voices, particularly the evening ones, meant that it was time to get ready for the county fair, summer’s last hurrah before the school year began.

The county fair was the last sense of summer’s lost abandon, a wild spree spread out over four nights of all-you-can-ride midway evenings, the buzz and anticipation of the demolition derby, the fair parade through small town streets, and the sounds of bells, whistles, shrieks, generators, and fireworks all set to a soundtrack of Def Leppard, Heart, and Bocephus. Nostalgia is a powerful drug and summer thrives on it.

These days I am only a kid on the inside and there’s no harm in that, but the arrival of shorter days and nature’s literal “calling” card signal something different is on the horizon. Less heat and humidity for starters … but it also welcomes in the idea of coming change and of harvesting the fruits of seeds planted so many weeks before. For me it also the celebration of a different kind of hurrah that has its own kind of nostalgia and longing that has me craving cotton candy and a spin on the ferris wheel. Nothing beats stopping at the top of the ride and for a brief moment taking in the whole scene slowly, before one stop at a time, dropping back down upon life’s little midway.

As I am writing this, the date is August 10, 2026. Today is the launch date for this little carnival crew that is Media Rewild and its small two person operation. We are taking a whirl on the Scrambler here, swinging and spinning across the expanse of the fairgrounds we have carved out here at A State of Affairs and over at my partner’s site, nurture. We do share a passing thought that we may lose those corn dogs we just ate but there is also a feeling of wild glee at simply taking the ride together.

And it’s that togetherness that inspired us to chose this particular date as our launch. August 10th also happens to be the launch date of our own coming together one year ago today. And while a calendar year is a relatively brief amount of time in the grand scheme of things, we both agree that all of the moments feel packed with so much more than time alone can hold. We have scattered each season with planted seeds but summer is our fair season and we plan on taking in all the sights and sounds of it … together.

Fall will soon be here and I will show no sadness to seeing the heat, the humidity, and the mosquitoes becoming distant memories … I do love the first chilly evenings, the burst of autumn colors, sweater weather, and the long length of light stretching across the landscape but I hear the crickets calling, the first fireflies are dancing under the backyard canopy of trees, and I thought I heard “Barracuda” playing somewhere off in the distance …

Enjoy what remains of these long, extended days of memory making and sweaty, last hurrahs … we hope you enjoy the ride as much as we do and just so you know … the view from the top of the ferris wheel looks amazing.

The Editor