Move On

So what tied you to Monday, September 4, 2023? Yes, it was a national holiday. That designation made it effect banks, the post office, and publication of The Wall Street Journal. In 1885, the first stirrings were for a time to affirm those who held day labor jobs like steel workers and auto assembly lines. Now, and maybe I am the only one who feels this way, it is a required holiday to make whatever you wish. Mainly, a long week-end to mark the end of summer routine. This year for me, Monday past was a time to write this blog and prepare for a week ahead.

Most of my recollections of Labor Day have to do with food and firecrackers. For some reason gathering to eat seems almost like a command. The group could be a simple as the twelve families around our block in Hammond putting up tables on the vacant lot where we played volleyball. The menu was chicken and potato salad ( brought out at the last minute so mayonnaise didn’t spoil in the heat) and the aunt from Lafayette brewing homemade rootbeer. Some years the last dinner on the grounds for church was a trip to Mandeville to eat by the lake and have another dip in water. Later some of you who read met at Live Oak Ranch and dragged lawn chairs to the fence to watch teenagers in short pants and boots shoot up firecrackers to appreciative “Uooos!” – however spelled.

One year will never be repeated. September 3, 1961, Hurricane Carla struck Houston. I had a new job in Spring Branch. In addition to usual hurricane problems of flooding and tree limbs and and house damaging, Spring Branch lost water for two weeks. The area of my school had wells instead of a piping systems. I saw a group of new children on a Friday and not again for two weeks. As I remember, by May we had read and written what we needed to and in the world today are some seventy-two year olds who have managed with a mangled education.

For this year, this Monday was a regrouping time. I will have one of my friends of 60 years come in from Colorado for a three day visit. Our children grew up together as a group of six, so we in town and the daughter transporting her will have a together time on Wednesday. That requires a readjusting of my solitary routine for groceries and meal preparing. I’m also waiting to see if I need to go outside the city limit to pick up a just pieced quilt from the lady who makes it bed worthy. I’m thankful for a Labor Day to be a free moment for this time of the year. Each month has some day to call us to remember. This one is a gift to both value time to labor and to be free to make this day a time to sustain our needs for this moment.

Also at your times of rejoicing—your appointed festivals and New Moon feasts—you are to sound the trumpets over your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and they will be a memorial for you before your God. I am the LORD your God.”

Number 10:10