IN MY LIFE-LABOR DAY

 Happy Labor Day! What Labor Day means to me...

*  Labor Day is always the first Monday in September. Next year Labor Day will fall on September 3, pretty early. It won't fall on September 1st until the year 2025. It's a big sales weekend, second only to Black Friday for retailers, especially the Back to School sales.

* Labor Day became an official holiday in 1894, however many states celebrated a day for the worker before that. Oregon was the first state to commemorate Labor Day, starting in 1887. Originally, Labor Day was supposed to be celebrated on May 1st. coincidentally, it was changed to September and became the unofficial end of summer. September 21 is the true end of summer ( the Autumnal Equinox), but after Labor Day it does begin to feel cooler. The days grow shorter. The sunset is noticeably different, setting before 7:30.

* To me, Labor Day was reality check. Time to head back to school. When I was a kid, school never started until the day after Labor Day. Not anymore, perhaps to avoid the snow days in winter. So, labor Day meant the true end of summer, getting up early again. Labor Day weekend was always the last hurrah; Labor Day itself was a bummer, sort of anti-climatic.

* Nothing signaled Labor Day more than the Jerry Lewis Telethon. It would go form Sunday night into Labor Day. Baseball was big too, usually day games or doubleheaders. Football would start soon, a true signal of the changing of seasons.

* You couldn't wear white after Labor Day- that was the old rule. nowadays, it doesn't matter. but it was really a big cardinal sin for my mom, especially when going to church.

* I get it now what Labor Day is all about. But I always knew what Memorial Day symbolized or Independence day. labor Day was this faceless holiday. You celebrated the American worker, but who? Then I looked at my dad as a symbol of Labor Day. He was a machinist at  a tire plant, often working weekends and overtime to make ends meets for his family. So, when I thought of Labor Day- even now- I think of my dad.

* Labor Day is weird because there aren't that many songs about the holiday. Even Thanksgiving has songs associated with the holiday ("We Gather Together..."). Billy Joel's "Famous Last Words" mentions Labor Day. It's about endings, which the end of summer symbolizes. The end of the vacations, the fun, the good times. Yes, I love summer. But Fall is nice too- the leaves changing colors, Football, The holidays ahead, the crisper weather, Indian Summer ( which is a nice reminder of the summer past and the summer next year), the new TV season and the great movies coming out. And it makes you appreciate Spring and the warmer days ahead.

* Interesting to note: amusement parks had lobbied that school not be allowed to start until after Labor Day. They actually went to court in Virginia to have it mandated- no school until after Labor Day. Once school starts and the studying begins, people have less tendency to take one more week or weekend of amusement park fun.

* Finally, Labor Day always seems like a distant holiday- until it is here. In the spring the Labor Day weekend seems so far away, you don't even want to think about it. Memorial Day is the beginning of the summer season; July 4th is sort of the middle. Even so, labor Day is still two months away. It seem like it will never arrive, and one wishes it never does, but here we are, celebrating yet another Labor Day again. For us adults, it's just another day off work, maybe the end of vacation ( I liked to take two weeks of vacation to wrap around Labor Day). To kids, Labor Day meant more, and as I age, I fondly look back at what Labor Day meant to me- the good and the bad- and miss that intense feeling I used to have.