Fall is just five days away; here are some fleeting thoughts while waiting for the vernal equinox to arrive, and thinking about how we're going to afford to heat our homes this winter:

The Northeast, and New England, have been fortunate to avoid even a glancing blow from hurricanes. Even Tropical Storm Hanna, which was supposed to have the potential of causing major flooding, just drenched the area, sparing us major damage. We got hit harder during the week in October 2005 when a steady barrage of rain caused serious flood damage around here.

We have a lot to be thankful for, having avoided any close encounters with the more potent hurricanes of recent years, including Gustav and Ike this year, but I was not pleased to see the latter hurricane turn into such a gigantic storm that it was referred to as a "monster." That's because Ike, which ravaged Galveston, Texas, and put a hurting on Houston, was named after my late father, who was about as unlike a hurricane as a human being can be.

In fact, Ike's given name was Isaac, which is from the Hebrew word meaning laughter, and Ike liked to laugh. He was also a gregarious sort - far more than his son ever thought of being - and he wouldn't have been comfortable having a hurricane named after him. Especially not one that caused as much serious damage and power outages as Ike wound up doing.

Explain this: There was a mandatory evacuation order, one that FEMA officials warned was capable of causing death to those staying behind in low-lying areas in the path of Hurricane Ike. Yet an estimated 10 percent of residents in the path of Ike, 10,000 of 1 million, chose to stay anyway. Why? Didn't anyone learn anything from Hurricane Katrina? It's better to evacuate only to find out that the effects were far less serious than feared (which is what happened in Gustav's case, which threatened New Orleans), than to stay behind and encounter a potential killer storm because you were trying to "tough" it out by staying behind.

If you didn't happen to catch part of the Notre Dame-Michigan game on Saturday, you may have missed one of the strangest coincidences of the week: Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weiss, the former offensive coordinator for Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, got hit by one of his own players during a play that came near the sidelines, and Weiss suffered both ACL and MCL tears in his knee, which is what media reports say Brady suffered in the opening game, which knocked him out for the season. And, as the commentators doing the game pointed out: Notre Dame was playing Michigan, Brady's alma mater, which only added to the irony of Weiss' injury.

One game isn't enough time to make any long-range judgments, but Patriots fans had to be impressed with the play of quarterback Matt Cassel, who showed a lot of grit and guts, and much leadership, in directing the Patriots to a 19-10 victory over the New York Jets on Sunday. Good for him.

The Red Sox have been playing solid baseball since jettisoning Manny Ramirez at the trading deadline, and they stand an excellent chance of playing well into October, but old-time worrywart Sox fans like myself have to be more than a tad worried about closer Jonathan Papelbon. He blew a key save last week against Tampa Bay, and he almost blew Sunday's game after southpaw Jon Lester kept the Toronto Blue Jays at bay for eight innings. He had better rediscover his other pitches, because closers who just throw heat are eventually doomed to failure once the batters know what to expect.

Speaking of Lester, the cancer survivor - who spun a no-hitter on May 19 - is one of the feel-good stories of this baseball season. He has become the best Sox southpaw since Bill "Spaceman" Lee, in this fan's view.

And, those of us who watched Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia with the Pawtucket Red Sox are mighty proud of the season that the spunky infielder is having, both at the plate and on the field. It's amazing that he could actually win a batting title in his second year in the league.

LARRY KESSLER is a local news editor. Reach him at lkessler@thesunchronicle.com.