On this pleasant Sunday afternoon, as summer was making a welcome segue into fall, three generations of progeny romped through the manor, played touch football in the yard, and stuffed themselves on the patio as we prepared to say goodbye to our place overlooking Lake Hartwell.

In our den, a procession of memories played across the digital frame into which I had loaded photographs that reflect the life and times of Miss Peggy and me and the children to whom we have transmitted life. If I sat in my recliner, I could see images of my lovely wife, now a gorgeous great-grandmother; of babies who are now grandparents; of their children who are now parents; and of the offspring of those children.

As I looked across the yard toward Lake Hartwell, I could see the signs of approaching fall: The leaves on the trees between me and the lake were taking on yellowish tinges, foregleams of the vivid hues of autumn.

I love that view from my second-story office window, from which I have viewed so many splendid sunsets over the lake. But I knew it was time to move on.

As I relaxed in the den or took in the activity in the back yard, I was grateful for those who could assume my former active role as host-in-chief. Miss Peggy’s son, Chris, filled his customary role as grill chef, turning out drunken chickens (grilled over containers of beer and marinated with a selection of seasonings), son-in-law Derrick coached the little ones in the finer points of touch football, and daughters and granddaughters took much of the load off Miss Peggy in feeding the crowd.

In the old days, when we were just grandparents, I would have taken the little ones on my knee and regaled them with stories that would bring alive the characters that peopled my generation's folklore.

When I was 5 or 6 years old, little boys would get into arguments over whether Captain Marvel could lick Superman in a fist fight, whether Roy Rogers was a faster draw than Gene Autry, and maybe whether a Chevy stood a chance in a race with a Ford.

The conversation among our baby grands was at a higher level. Chase, our 4-year-old grandson, and Soren, our 5-year-old great-grandson, were in a conversation about the Solar System. Both agreed that there are eight planets, since Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet. (When I was their age, Pluto was a comic-strip dog and a dwarf was one of those little guys who sheltered Snow White from her wicked stepmother).

Chase allowed that Mercury is the hottest of the eight planets. Soren insisted that Venus is hotter, even though Mercury is closer to the sun. Venus, he pointed out, has an “atmotosphere.” (cq) We’re going to have to work on his pronunciation, but I can’t make a ruling on his facts. A brief consultation with Google told me that both planets have sizzling surfaces, with temperatures exceeding 850 degrees Fahrenheit.

Chase seems to have come up with a trump card: “The sun is the hottest,” he said, and they launched into a discussion, far above my head, of whether the sun was a planet or a star.

As I listened, I knew that my star was fading. This time next year, we won’t be watching the leaves changing on the fringes of Lake Hartwell — at least not from this vantage point. The view was our prime reason for buying this place, but we reckoned without the failing strength in my legs, the growing brittleness in my bones, and the burden of keeping up a three-quarter-acre lawn that stretches in a steep slope toward the lake.

I outfitted my second-floor office with a microwave, a coffeemaker and a mini-refrigerator to cut down on the trips I would have to make up and down the stairs. I bought a riding mower to cut the lawn, and a self-propelled walking mower to manicure the places too tight for the riding mower to maneuver.

I soon realized that my office had become a cave, and no matter how comfortable it was, it wasn’t a healthy place to spend all my time. And it would take just one fall (and I am a klutz) to immobilize me permanently.

The riding mower is fun to operate, but keeping it well maintained requires mechanical skills I don’t have, or am fast losing, and spending a couple of hours on it in the summer heat is not healthy for a man in his middle 70s.

So at the insistence of Miss Peggy, we put the manor on the market and will be moving into a single-level home on a much smaller lot in a more generic neighborhood that has no lake. But it’s closer to hospitals, drugstores, banks and grocery stores, and that’s important at our age.

My new digs are about as roomy as the old ones — at least on the inside — and I will have a sun room to use as an office. I’ll miss that marvelous lake view, and I’ll miss the back yard, where I could watch from the patio as the squirrels, the birds, and the occasional deer and fox provided their restful diversion.

I’m hoping to take Fuji with me. Our adopted cat comes to us for food and shelter, even though she technically belongs to another family on another street. Her nominal owners had 15 other cats at last count, and they tended to chase Fuji away from the food bowl. We’ll have to talk to them about letting her go with us.

I’m going to miss the manor, but I’ll take along the memories in the form of those images in the digital frame.

Readers may write Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625, or email him at WadesDixieco@AOL.com.