It’s Labor Day in the U.S.A. and we Americans take it very seriously. Not only is no one working but they’ve more or less flown the coop.
My neighborhood is so dead it looks like an abandoned movie set. Of course, if I had a house on the beach that’s where I’d be too, but alas, I don’t…so here I sit with my books and take-out menus applying scores of sunscreen, in solidarity.
In 1882, Matthew McGuire, a machinist, first proposed the holiday while serving as secretary of the CLU (Central Labor Union) of New York. Others argue that it was first proposed by Peter J. McGuire of the American Federation of Labor in May 1882 after witnessing Toronto, Canada’s annual labour festival. I say who cares. Oregon was the first state to make it a holiday on February 21, 1887. By the time President Grover Cleveland made it a federal holiday in 1894, thirty states officially celebrated Labor Day.
It’s also celebrated symbolically as the last day of summer before the new school year begins. Lunchboxes and school supplies bulge from store windows while we await the coming of fall. Major department stores commemorate it by having huge sales so we can increase our debt prior to the season change.
In Connecticut, where I’m from, it’s more whimsically seen as the final chance to wear white and seersucker, something I’ve tried in vain to abandon. Every time I attempt donning white pants between now and Memorial Day my mother appears in my closet with her wooden spoon.
“TAKE THOSE OFF!”
“Yes Ma.”
So I usually spend my Labor Day in part putting my whites away wishing them well as I zip up that summer garment bag sorry I didn’t wear them more. My favorite white dress blinks back tears as she fades from view. Of course I do have today for one last fling so maybe I’ll take her to lunch with the promise she doesn’t tell the others. I can just see myself rushing home between courses for a quick wardrobe change.
Why couldn’t I have been born in Jersey where no one ever cares what they wear.
I can’t help thinking of my ex who wore white chinos all year round like a misplaced Good Humor Man. This was as bold as I could get, dating someone who didn’t heed the no white rule. Of course now we know why it didn’t last. I just used alcohol and verbal abuse as excuses..it was really all that, what he called, vinta vite, that ended the affair. He was Dutch remember, and they don’t come with Ws.
I think I’ll jump in the shower and don that white dress one last time. I just heard my white Ferragamo sandals bang the inside of their shoebox.
“Alright, relax…did you think I was going barefooted?”
Happy Labor Day to all… 
and try not to drink too much. 
SB
