Labor Day

Pretty gloomy start to Labor Day!  Like I did so many years ago, I will spend it at the lake.  Granted it will be a different lake and none of the family that I grew up with will be there, but it will be much like it was the year that I started teaching.  Family together, signifying the end of summer, and the beginning of fall.

Actually, in 1971 we didn't go to the lake.  In previous years we would go to help our grandparents take in the pier, have a cookout, and be with extended family one more time before the Christmas holidays.  My grandmother on my father's side died in December, and my grandfather was just not himself.  He decided to sell the lake house.  My other grandparents had moved into a retirement community. The cottage that they owned was to be split with my parents and my uncle.  Eventually, that meant it would be sold.

I was coaching football, and the season was about to start.  My brothers were both on that team that I coached.  We had practice.  My sister's year in college was starting, and dad's business had to be run on the busy Labor Day weekend.  So, 1970 was the last time we went to the lake.

It was so symbolic.  We tried to finish summer packed with the activities that said summer: swimming, boating, hiking, miniature golf, and cooking out.  I remember that we spent the weekend with the family playing cards and enjoying each other's company.  Then, five o'clock on Labor Day reared its ugly head.  Dad had us gather up our things.  We loaded up the station wagon.  My family got in and headed out.  I had driven my own car that summer because I was heading back to Manchester for my senior year.  With the extra time I walked the path to the beach one last time, not knowing that I wouldn't walk that path again for another 40 years when our family reunion recreated those steps.

Labor Day weekend still has some of that magic, but now that schools all tend to start well before Labor
Day it isn't the same.   Still got the memories though.