Labor Day Then and Now

6 September 2020

My morning ritual of pedestrian activity is in motion. I am in motion. Somewhere behind me off to the east, a dog barks. A car goes zipping by me.  A short time later a second car passes and thereafter the road then falls silent for several minutes. Today, the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, is gray, cool, and slow. This is how the world is these days in this year.  Pandemic quiet.

When I was much younger the world was much brighter and way noisier. On the three days of Labor Day weekend I would be trying to cram in as much of the last of summer’s fun as I possibly could. Labor Day was an exclamation point to a paragraph written frantically from late May to early September.

Friday night I’d be walking the boardwalk. Up and down I would go talking to all the vendors I knew. I would run into summer friends and laugh and joke and then move on. Again, and again, I would move to the eastern edge of the boards and stand with my waist pressed against the steel railing 10 feet off the sand.  Gazing far into the distance I would scan the ocean’s horizon for fishing boats as the sun was fading.  Seeing only a couple I would watch the waves for minutes on end. Maybe if I was feeling rebellious, I would sneak under the board and smoke a joint. 

Saturday night I’d be crowded into a tiny dive bar with tons of other scrawny, thirsty and oversexed 18 to 22-year olds looking for action. My favorite place was a tiny little place where they served seven 7-ounce beers for a dollar. And the beers would be good and icy cold. And the amber brews would be really, really tasty. And maybe I would order a basket of fried mushrooms. Sometimes there is nothing is better than crunching down through the hard crust of a fried mushroom into its moist, juicy, earthy center and washing it down with an ice-cold beer.

Late on Saturday night, added to what was already a rush and frenzy to make the end the summer memorable there would be fireworks raining over the boardwalk. The sulfurous smelling greens, reds and blues filled the night sky.  In white phosphorus written not in words but in trailing fading traces of light was this, “This is the end of summer.  Commit this one to memory.  Return to it when you need assurance that there are better times awaiting.” How I have gone running back to that message again and again as of late.

The eyeballs of those who read this message would be scarred for minutes at a time. And somewhere not far off a band was playing. Probably it was coming from the Music Pier. The songs would be older than I was. Still, people would be tapping their feet and humming the tunes. When the sun finally set the older women pulled sweaters around their shoulders to ward off the cooling of evening. This was indeed early September. These knowing women had lived this weekend many times before.

Sunday was all about the sand and the surf.  No chance of sunburn because my tan was well formed by then.  Everyone had flyaway lightened beach hair. Umbrellas and beach towels got their last workouts.

Monday was the great emptying of the summer homes and vacation rentals. Those end of the summer moments were damp and sticky from the humidity and from the human contact that was invariably part of the experience. Labor Day was the last weekend for seersucker. It was the last weekend of white pants and shoes. All the Carlton Varney florals that decorated the old one-story summer homes were shuttered up and gone from sight for nine months. Pillows that had become like lead from the sea air moisture would be thrown out as summer rentals were vacated. 

My summers have not been like that for over 40 years. But every Labor Day those memories come back. But this year will be memorable too. 2020 will be remembered as marked by isolation not celebration. This year’s reminiscences will be if anxiety, frustration, fear and angry vitriol. 2020’s summer has been the strangest of times. 

Right now, we are distanced from our past lives, from our friends, from what used to pass as normal. It is hard to acknowledge but there is no new normal yet. Many people are totally desiring the old world they knew to be open again. For them the reality that what life was like before March 2020 is not coming back any time soon has not settled in yet. And when it does settle in, I don’t think it will be with celebration. This moment is both one summer’s end and it is the end of an entire generation’s way of experiencing life.

My walk has revealed to me that the seasonal switch has flipped and we in the Midwest are moving from summer to autumn definitively. Here in this northern college town it’s 50° on Sunday before Labor Day as I am out and about. Fall season hallmarks are conspicuously absent from this Big 10 college town. There are no crushed red Solo cups or empty beer cans to be found in the gutters. Yesterday should have been a game day and celebratory detritus should be everywhere. The streets are clean and there are no tents with the Ugly Sparty logo still waiting to be disassembled on driveways and front lawns.

At this time of year every morning one should hear the Spartan drumline pounding out repetitive marching rhythms. Normally the drumline would beat those rhythms out again and again until what you would here would be crisp and perfectly in alignment. But we have no football due to the pandemic.  Because of the pandemic there is no drum line. Because of the pandemic there is no marching band. It’s a silent fall.

The memories of a pandemic Labor Day will be quieter.  The memories of a pandemic Labor Day will be lonelier, sadder. The world does change in ways unexpected.