Laurels to the meteorologists for the month of August. By the standards of Rowan County’s long, hot summer of 2015, August was not bad. The average low was 69 and the average high was 90, compared to 68 and 92 for July, according to local weather watcher Bill Poole. There were “only” 19 days when the temperature reached 90 degrees, within which there were only 10 consecutive such days. Compare that to 26 and 17 days in July, Poole says. The only days of 95 degrees or more were Aug. 4 and 5, when the monthly high of 99 degrees was reached.  Will September continue this trend toward milder weather?

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Darts to the ebbing of an all-American tradition, cooking out on the grill. Or so says a Bloomberg report, citing data from researcher NPD group (Nixing Party Deliciousness?). “The percentage of U.S. homes using their barbecue grill for a main meal in a typical two-week period dropped to 35 percent lat year from 40 percent in 2009,” Bloomberg reports. Your own Labor Day celebration may contradict this, but trend watchers say the high price of beef is driving people away from the grill.  Steak, which made up 32 percent of dinners cooked on the grill in 1985, now accounts for only 21 percent.

Perhaps the real issue here is the misuse of the word, “barbecue,”  by Bloomberg. To those of us in the Carolinas, that brings to mind smoked pork, chopped or pulled, and piled high on a bun with slaw. Barbecue is a delicacy to be eaten, not something you do to a burger or steak on the grill. It’s like the difference between lightning and lightning bug.

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Laurels to the joint city-county resolution declaring Aug. 28 as Food Lion Day in Salisbury Rowan. That was one of the highlights of what felt like Ralph Ketner Day, the Aug. 27 premiere at Catawba College of “Lessons in Leadership,” a film about the Food Lion co-founder’s life. Ketner not only got to see the story of his life reported in documentary form, he also received the Order of the Longleaf Pine, the state’s highest honor. (Gov. Pat McCrory gave him a thumbs up when the governor was at Catawba a week later.) Ketner, however, wants to be sure Food Lion gets some of the glory. The supermarket company includes more than 1,100 stores in 10 Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic states and employs more than 63,000 associates.