• This week’s rain got us thinking about fall, which got us thinking about Daylight Saving Time (yes, saving not savings). Clocks change at 2 am Nov. 1, the night Halloween slides into Día de los Muertos. Love it? Hate it? That’s this week’s EW Asks survey, which you can find at EugeneWeekly.com along with a review of an all-ages tribute band fest and whatever other fun things we added online this week!

• Pickleball lovers — you know who you are — the dream of nets, paddles and bouncing balls at Lane Community College is still alive! Peak Credit Union announced it has committed $500,000 to the Emerald Valley Pickleball Foundation to help develop its planned 24-court regional pickleball complex at LCC. The foundation has now begun a dollar-for-dollar community challenge through Dec. 31, to try to raise up to $1 million in combined support for the project. The total fundraising goal is $6.2 million. Find out more at EVPickleballFoundation.com.

• The comments: Eugene Weekly covers topics that tend to be triggering for MAGA folks, racists, anti-trans etc. It’s the nature of what we value — diversity, the community, the environment, protests, sane politics, etc. When we post stories on Facebook, Instagram and other social media we often get comments that are angry and hateful to us or the folks we cover. As a newspaper, we try to provide a forum for dialogue — even when we don’t like or agree with what is being said. Free speech is protected under the First Amendment as is freedom of the press. Threats are not — we delete (and report) them. And we love those readers who clap right back at the haters!

• Remember when The Register-Guard used to have an opera critic? Remember that time that humorist Dave Barry wrote a column about playing a corpse in the Eugene Opera? Relive those moments and more with the opening of the Eugene Opera Museum 5 pm Sept. 4, at the Midtown Arts Center Gallery, 174 East 16th Avenue. If you can’t make it but want to nerd out on opera at home, the University of Oregon’s KWAX has Saturdays at the Opera every week at 10 am on 91.1 FM during the Metropolitan Opera season.

• Word is this year will be a strong El Niño, which means a warm, dry winter on top of the drought conditions Oregon is experiencing. This week’s smoke was a reminder that climate change is still wreaking havoc and this week’s rain is a reprieve, not a fix. 

• Sept. 7 is Labor Day, school starts for the K-12 set and the start of colleges and universities — Sept. 28 — draws closer. Time to eat the blackberries, pick the tomatoes and plan for Halloween.