Those ghosts will remain somewhat lonely.

    School has resumed. Vacations and lax diligence are finished. Although weather should permit several more weeks of sailing, serves and tee-offs followed by hacking, the emphasis our society places on nose to grindstone performance denies any extension of these pursuits past Labor Day.

    Strolls through such vacant shore or brae addresses are now mixtures of somberness and relief. The leisure class has abandoned these boating and golf premises to housekeepers, gardeners, and kitchen staff who’ve happily shucked much of their occupational deference.

    Even the various establishments’ chefs, toque-less, have been sighted outside their culinary kingdoms. So here are the guys responsible for slapping together those Cornish game hen entrees. Just like mom used to bake. Except she was rarely as surly.

    With constant traffic of matrons togged more for display than comfort, masters in loud pants, their children veering between sweet precocity and spoiled petulance ended, personnel who had been so much “respiring furniture” seemingly emerge from often really busy paneling and wallpaper.

    The servants requirement for habitual fawning ceases until next Memorial Day. Other than occasional luncheons, receptions and cocktail parties, hey, maybe even fulfilling a charity obligation or two, the members onslaught has abated. Far less scrutiny permits outlets for the personalities of the servile.

    Gone are tight grins on brown faces regardless of how insulting the thoughtless comment. Banished also is the resentment engendered when particularly jumped-up members publicly hector lower-rung club employees. Obviously membership does not confer noblesse.

    Of course with summer’s heated torrent becoming a cooling autumnal trickle, seasonal hires have been made redundant.

    No longer undergoing vetting at perimeter guard shacks, some receptionist, invariably a blue rinse sister, owlish behind large-lens glasses, begrudges strangers inside. That’s another thing. Tara, Sara and Noelle, amid many area darlings staffing the clubs’ first impression posts — their fresh, supple presences welcomed and welcoming on sultry days– currently re-occupy college classes.

    While there are many aspects given birth then die among the respective seasons, the single manifestation missed after our summers are the slim young women rendered desirable in summer dresses.

    Loose shifts and single strands of pearls further burnished sun-browned Tara, Sara or Noelle and their numerous sisters elsewhere also tasked with simply behaving attentively while being attractive.

    Shorts and blouses don’t convey style. Daisy Dukes and halters lack subtlety. Neither pairing stirs any level of flighty flirting. The kind which should lead to summer’s finest distraction, the fling. The more meaningless, the better. Perfect for summer because the fever dissipates with the onset of head-clearing cooler weather.

    But, aaah, summer dresses!

    At this juncture I recall Irwin Shaw’s inquiry of girls and their summer dresses. Weren’t both discarded after Labor Day? Or is that another story? Not so much those casual garments, rags the right models transformed into raiments, but the curious rather than predatory arousal they inflamed.

    That said, who still reads Irwin Shaw? Is he due for a revival?

    Male club supervisors and the dues-paying petty Napoleons they click heels before seldom cluster around the work stations or desks of faded pretties. As their wives can attest.

    Hadn’t the gray eminences now sitting behind the receptionist desks once drawn the same level of male canine attention? And hadn’t it boosted their self-worth, despite then society demanding good-girl disavowals?

    From siren to duenna. Being devalued. Think that has any affect?

    Walking through corridors or into rooms or taking stairs strikes one with solitude. People are ever present throughout summer. One either deftly maneuvered or got jostled. Were there secluded spots within any clubs? Other than inside attics or crawlspaces?

    Now whole interiors replicate the airiness of patios. People vanished, objects take precedence. Our possessions come to the forefront.

    At a golf club a set of sticks leaning in a bag drop waited for their convention defying duffer. He (or she) must’ve been damned determined to squeeze in a good 18 more holes before New York climate became Caddyshack masochistic. Good for whoever bucked the trend. Probably still wearing white shoes, too.

    Tennis and squash courts are forlorn cages. Netting already droops.

    Bounded by resorts and clubs all those years in Southern Arizona, a region boasting 320 sunny days a year, I seldom grabbed a racket. Neither did I bother learning how to golf. Worse, those years had me involved in an organization that had somehow wrangled us club privileges. All that by the board. Guess I wasn’t clubby then. This is me now kicking myself.

    Out in whichever Long Island Sound beach club cove a squadron of Sunfish bob. Kiddy boats really, Sunfish. Simple single-masters. The biggest washout landlubber can learn rudimentary sailing in them.

    Behind clubhouse bars, spirit bottles secured, gleaming pyramids of rocks glasses and schooners. Used so frequent in season who would’ve guessed such large glassware stocks existed?

    That plush leather-covered chair by the door. Strategically positioned as it is, did its roster of occupants alight there understanding and exploiting placement and vantage? Or simply because it offered the best seat while waiting for a summoned Town Car?

    How soon until the calendar demands clubhouse doors and windows be closed or shut? During the summer the former were in constant motion or propped altogether. Weren’t the latter thrown open in May and remain so until today?

    Last-gasp summer breezes yield more often to gusts foretelling of chilling gales to come. Nowhere near forceful enough yet to whip and denude tree limbs, the zephyrs occasionally shake green-into-orange leaves with pom-pom fervor.

    Windows bare, no curtains billow. Unobstructed views across water or greens into tree lines present fine examples of diminishing perspective. Say, long corridors which funnel into wide open doors that allow glimpses of the above pastorals.

    Understanding the approaching changes, wouldn’t the soul be better served, mood significantly raised, if a slender and fresh Tara, Sara or Noelle, snug in flattering woolens, enraptured our focus rather than bucolic views? A pleasing scenario that can be improved at the bar. There, autumn refined … and distilled: generous pours of something aged in rocks glasses facilitating conversation aimed at eventually thwarting the cold.