About an hour and a half after "the most exciting two minutes in sports," we came to a decision. No longer will summer begin in June. Forget what the calendar says on June 22. Nor will Memorial Day mark the date when our mindset turns from sweaters to sandals, when we start to think of barbecues in the backyard and afternoons in the park.

No, we've decided that from here on out, summer begins on Derby Day.

Not to take all the credit, I believe I proposed this change in thinking as dusk waned into night as we sat around drinking and talking at Lisa's and Kathleen's apartment down in the southern end of our town. We'd been there since 3 p.m., drinking mint juleps and talking horse names while answering cell phone calls from lost city folk trying to find the place. One guy endured an arduous trek that began with the realization that his car battery died, followed by the bus on which he was riding breaking down, then a transfer to another bus that took him to the wrong place, and finally a third bus that took him to what the driver told him was "only about six blocks" from the house but turned out to be closer to two miles.

Closer to 8 p.m., the breeze coming in the windows, it felt cool again after a warm afternoon. Summer parties have a different feel to winter ones, particularly those that begin under daylight. When darkness falls, it's later, but you don't notice it. You may have been there for five hours to that point, but you feel you have five more hours in you. The cold beer tastes better on hot days and the lighter clothes feel more free. The women wear skirts and sleeveless tops and smiles serve only to accent their appearance.

So why shouldn't summer begin the first weekend of May, when the folks at Churchill Downs break out the fancy hats and colorful vests and watch horses run around a track for a mile and a quarter for a little more than two minutes? It allows for three more weeks of summer thinking, of planning weekends out of doors and getting some color in the cheeks and on the arms before the beaches open for good.

Reserve Memorial Day for another gear, so to speak. Summer begins that first May weekend, but beach weather arrives with the three-day weekend. It makes sense, too, if you look at the Fourth of July as the midpoint of summer. From Memorial Day to the Fourth, there are generally five to six weeks; from the Fourth to Labor Day -- the sad end of summer -- it's just about two months (all estimates contingent, of course, on when exactly Memorial Day and Labor Day fall in a particular year). Push the summer season, the summer thinking back to early May and you get three or four more weeks of "summer," you get to open with a bang -- and a party -- and truly treat July 4th as a midpoint of the season.

Perhaps I say this because yesterday went so well, it served as such a good start that I hope the rest of the summer is filled with such great afternoons and evenings spent with true friends -- especially when they're as relatively new as the likes of Lisa and Kathleen. I want yesterday to be more than just a good party, I hope that it is an accurate indication of what is to come.

Both Casey and I made out well yesterday, particularly financially. In our informal party pool, nine people put in $5 (I don't know why the other six people present punked out) and we drew numbers -- corresponding with original post positions -- out of a bowl. Because there were exactly twice as many horses as participants at our party, we each drew two numbers. Casey won, and while $90 would've been more fun than $45, it was still something.

I, on the other hand, won at the track. I placed $28 worth of bets with Mom, who always runs over to Monmouth Park the morning of the Derby to place a few wagers on the race. One year, she came away with a sizable take after putting $2 down on the eventual winner across the board. With such long odds on much of the field, I couldn't decide which matchup I liked best, so I boxed one trifecta and four different exactas. When Smarty Jones -- the only horse I had in two bets, one of them being the trifecta -- passed Lion Heart on the homestretch, I had the exacta (and, by boxing the bet, would've had it if they'd reversed positions) and $65 and change for my efforts. I'll get the money next weekend, because I insisted on handling the actual cash from the betting window myself. It just feels more real that way.

Now, with the clouds overtaking the evening sun and the five open windows in the living room blowing a cooler breeze on my legs, I think of this more as the end of a summer day than a spring one. True, the yellow coating of pollen on my car is just one reminder that despite what I want to believe, we may be in for more cooler, wetter weather over the next month than hotter, stifling days and nights, but in the end it could just be all in my head.

The governor agrees: A commercial for summer at the Jersey Shore just aired during the Mets game. What more convincing do we need?