Domain change

 The lord of all creation is surveying his domain this morning from the roof of our car, and never mind that his domain is the parking lot of a Ramada Inn. You take what you get when the rising sun is scattering jewels across the Straits of Mackinac, and making giant's shadows of pickups and SUVs and even our humble Hyundai Sonata.

On a morning this glorious, what you get is more than enough. Even if you're, you know, a seagull.

There he stands, looking regal and very white against the dark blue of our Sonata, and not a little disdainful. Trudging earthbound humans pack-mule their luggage around and past him, and his beady little eye misses none of it. His silent judgment: What sad creatures these are.

I can't say I'm thinking the same this morning, although I could. There are sad creatures  everywhere in the land these days, and we all know where the saddest (and strangest) abide.

No, what I'm thinking about are domains, and if a seagull on the roof of our car is a damn tortured segue into that, so be it. I never claimed to have a linear mind, or even one that works more than intermittently. 

So let's talk domains. Specifically, the shifting of one to another.

It's been coming for a few weeks now, but last night and this weekend are the official handoff. The season that belonged to baseball and motorsports and golf is going away; the season of football is upon us.

It struck me when I went online this morning and checked out what happened Friday on green fields beneath a Broadway blaze of lights, and realized I hadn't done that in nine months. That's because high school football in Indiana officially began a new season last night, and today Kansas State plays Iowa State in Dublin, Ireland, and here we go, here we go.

Fall is here, defying the calendar as brazenly as ever. Summer is down to the dregs. . The domain of baseball and car racing and golf has become the domain of football's Goliath, and it has happened, as it always does, literally overnight.

And so here I am, cruising the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette website to see how my New Haven Bulldogs did. Oh, great, crushed 41-0 by Northrop at home. And, look, Leo beat Bishop Luers 14-7 in the marquee game of the night. Carroll, Bishop Dwenger, Concordia? 

All lost to stinkin' Indy schools, doggone it.

What else? Oh, here's East Noble paving Wayne 42-0, signaling the Knights are done yet after their state finals run last year. Bellmont and Norwell got ball-peened by Heritage and Mississinewa, perhaps signaling more losses to come in the thorny Northeast 8. And defending 2A state champ Adams Central got past Garrett 7-0 down in Monroe, because ... well, because they're Adams Central.

And today?

Week 0 in college football. Prelude to opening weekend. Kansas State vs. Iowa State in Dublin -- a damned odd place for two corn-belt schools to wind up, but what the hey. Go get 'em, you lads from Kansas. Have at it, you boyos from Iowa. May the rains fall gently on your fields of waving grain, even if the Iowa Staters will have to explain all this Cyclone business.

Domain change, too, perhaps. But not here, by golly. Not here.