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

What have you survived? The flu epidemic. Harvey the hurricane. Covid for two years. Remember the summer of 2023? I have spent my life on the Gulf Coast. Many of the summers without AC, only an occilating fan. Yet the maybe 100 degrees didn’t hit until August and nights cooled off enough to sleep with only a sheet. I went into my research mode and supposedly 2011 had 46 days over 100 which topped what we think was offered this year. I just know my outdoor/indoor thermometer read 106 one afternoon for my back yard.

YET, it is an ill wind that blows no good. Usually along with hot summers in Houston comes humidity and maybe a few showers. Just enough moisture collects in low places to allow our summer infestation – mosquitoes. Newspaper headlines warn about checking on standing water and give information about times the city will have trucks out spraying. Diseases are a possibility. Not so much malaria; definitely West Nile Virus. With no rain, swatting during the few forays outside is at a minimum and nights are quieter without a buzzing that says, “You just think you are safe!”

However, in my house, fruit flies have filled the flying vacancy. In the grocery store bananas rest in piles with no black pin-sized dots swarming over them. After entering my back door the same appear by the hundreds. I wrap bananas in plastic bags. I place cups of vinegar nearby. That is the old wives’ tale recommendation. I tried one commercial offering I had bought my daughter. Finally a friend gave me ZEVO, a plug in sticky attractor that did help right near the banana bowl. A few still lurk in the area of my meditating chair and around the corner to my computer. One more identifier for the term summer season.

Each mention is designed to get our attention: heat, no rain or perhaps hurricanes, red, itchy bites, or black wiggles in front of our faces. Irritants, yes, and also a reminder that we need to pay attention to the time that like happenings were a reminder that an exodus from captivity was on the way. Even as I write, the high may be only 98. A change is in the air. September 23 starts Fall and summer will be behind us.

Then Moses left Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord, and the Lord did what Moses asked. The flies left Pharaoh and his officials and his people : not a fly remained.

Exodus 8: 30-31

Choose from among mine or create your own. I Need to Get Out More. It Takes a Village. Surprise Endings. So you already know that a certain age and a certain outdoor temperature can create a mind set. Do I really need whatever (and it’s usually ice cream for the freezer) to dress, back the car down my long driveway, and go to some gathering of stores? Also, if I am going for one item, what else needs to be added to make this trip worthwhile. This morning was such a day. I already had a required destination for a church meeting at 11:00, so the sorta list I had could be tacked on to the way there. I felt especially righteous because I spent an hour and a half on a current project – more about that later- before I cleaned up and headed out.

Major item was to buy sticky replacements for the improved plug in to capture fruit flies. I think the inventor was a relative of the same man who built a better mousetrap. I checked Amazon. I could order, yet for some reason they wouldn’t arrive until October 1. I ran a local store check and Target carried them and one of their stores was between here and there. I asked the first red shirt I saw which quadrant of the universe held my product. C-16. Way to the back and to the left. One more question because 16 was horizontal instead of vertical and I missed the seeing. While I had a helper, I asked about lightbulbs which were all the ways across the store to another far corner. I had brought the dead bulb with me. It had lighted my closet for almost 10 years and the curlicue shape had gone out of style. Since most men don’t mind being helpful to white haired ladies, I asked a fellow shopper what was the best thing to do. He had lived out of the country for 6 years and really wasn’t sure. We combined our ignorance and made a choice. I checked out at the DIY line because someone in an electric chair insisted I go ahead of her. She then offered directions about scanning and entering my phone number to get credit for future purchases. The Village Gathered!

Now all I had to do was wend my way to church, except I didn’t go back to the main artery. I soon discovered the way south was a back and forth confusion of blockage and rerouting in order to lay new sewer pipes. I thought I was closer to a solution when a noisy machine and an orange DETOUR sign with arrow appeared next to a deep open ditch. Last time I drove this neighborhood, none of this construction was happening. How long ago was that?

Finally I could turn left on Richmond, a street of choice. I was right by a post office and I did have a letter to mail that wasn’t really on the list. Once inside, I thought of stamps I needed to buy. If you get a letter with flowers or endangered species you know what I went through to make that happen. That stop was the surprise wrap up to this morning adventure. More help, guidance, and blessing may have been in the mix than I noticed.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

Psalm 32:8

A variety across the spectrum from any source: a made up jingle, a literary quote, a fond saying of Great-aunt Gertrude. Those few words that appear to validate, or encourage, or terminate. They are recognized and counted on for all immediate family to know and recognize. I know of only one universal group that may be handed mostly to women, maybe along with a new baby. “We’ll see.” Three words, or a contraction and one word, that are suitable to a vast amount of situations. “Can I have three friends to spend the night?” “We’ll see.” “Honey, are we going to my mother’s for Sunday lunch?” “We’ll see.” Nothing has been denied, yet nothing has been promised.

I was raised with my mother’s, “We’ll manage.” Translated that meant she would readjust or think of a new way, or just tighten her belt and march on until an outcome was reached. The phrases are usually like a secret sign only to those in the know. One for our family was “When” used to denote the right amount had been reached. A thirteen year old watched a British waiter pour chocolate sauce over profiteroles and at an appropriate moment said the magic word. Nothing happened. Repeated a little louder and tried to make eye contact. Still a stream of liquid. I put out a hand and said, “No more, please.” Some of you readers stood in front of a grandfather at the ranch and heard an authoritative voice declare. “Always leave gates like you found them.” As adults seated at a barn wedding for a next generation, you nervously checked with each other as a bagpipe and groomsmen in kilts piped their way through a gate across the field. Who would get up to carry out the edict? Thankfully the last man was one who knew what to do. Maybe our favorite is the thought of an Amelia Bedelia who comes back from an adventure amazingly in time to rescue whatever is in the oven. “Just right, said Amelia Bedilia!” We made everything work, one more time.

Did this lead to a variety of family discussions? Who always said what and what did that phrase mean? How did those words identity the fabric of your family? Two more, while maybe not the universality of “We’ll see,” are still a family’s way to summarize a conclusion of life and to offer awareness that what has been given is beyond us. The first comes at that moment when for whatever reason we are in the midst of knowing that around us ” all nature sings the music of the spheres.” “Alleluia!‘ Alphabetically, the other can be as common as the ending to a blessing for food or as breathless as the conclusion of pulling in a driveway after a long trip home. “Amen!”

After all these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying “Alleluia”

Revelation 19:1

For all the promises of God in Him are yea and in hIm “Amen” to the glory of God by us.

2 Corinthians 1:20

A story adds to accumulating knowledge. A summer family camp had a place for everyone beginning at age 4. The first summer our daughter was only 3 1/2, so the stayed with grandparents. All winter the boys primed her with what fun things her group would do. She went stoically her first morning. We picked her up at noon with the usual question,,” Did you have fun?” She planted her feet and declared, “Nobody knew my name!” Her contacts consisted of lots of family at home and in San Antonio and various activities at our church where everyone said, “Hi, Sarah.” Grammatically a first person singular pronoun needs a third person singular pronoun to have a first person plural pronoun. I need you to enjoy being part of we.

I am aware of this because several changes have lessened close at hand friends, mostly because of life shifts. I have passed the stage of several children in my circle, both of family and a classroom each day. Being a widow and living in my own home means if I didn’t reach out only the yard man and twice a month cleaner would be in my space. Attending whatever is not as often because I don’t drive as much. Part of the problem is older people die, reducing the available pool. This isn’t a situation just for an 87 year old. Every day a newspaper article speaks to a variety of ages lacking the personal contact with flesh and blood and the talents needed to draw them into your circle. Phone texts are special, yet not the same as sharing space. Wall Street Journal told of a lonely security guard who wiles away the night having conversations with Grace, a chatbot on the app Replica.

So, even though I am not discounting adult children to be available, I have taken action in my own hands to create a larger circle. I write this blog and picture most of you and how you fit in my life. Friends a half decade younger are still a little more alert at driving and wanting to go to various events, even to choir which in itself offers being with long time and new acquaintances. Arranging for tickets or paying for parking are an easy way to share togetherness. I make a point to converse with the check out Asian helper at Kroger, designated as a “weak tie,” yet still a familiar face to exchange smiles and comments with me. The Little Free Library helps me go read to the little ones sitting at the table. A few parents of my first and second graders at church were my first graders themselves one day. I search them out and remind them. So thanks to YOU who call, send pictures, even write letters, or sometime drop in to help affirm,”Someone out there still knows my name. WE are a group!”

Two are better than one,
    because they have a good return for their labor:
 If either of them falls down,
    one can help the other up.

Ephesians 4:9 – 10

It is Wednesday afternoon and I went in to publish what I carefully wrote Monday. Surely I had saved those words, but not so. This is not a well-written rerun. More a sand between your toes walk on the beach. Those shells we strolled and collected at one time housed a nebulous sea animal. By the time we gathered the housing, the creature had already dried up and disappeared, only leaving, as Oliver Wendell Holmes poetically said, “thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!” Just abandoned on the beach.

I always wanted to truly find one of the large conch shells to hold to my ear and hear the song of the sea it had captured. That never happened. Scollops or mollusk shells, the semi-circular fan shaped ones, are the easiest to find unbroken. They are usually bleached white or stained a dirty brown. Some shells are named by their shape like the Turk’s cap which could be a headpiece for an Islamic man or the auger, twisted to have a purpose in a tool box. Sand dollars are special if found before they are cracked. Throw in a few shark’s teeth and you can have a summer display.

This is the summer I have the feelings of the small creature. I need the protective layer of a shell to keep the world at bay. Amazingly, as I manage to grow in spite of, I can claim a useful adaptation of a real shell. The growth occurs at the leading edge and the beginnings can be sealed off to give room to move ahead. Whatever pattern is formed is distinctively mine. Who knows, I may be a collectible someday.

So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, 

Genesis 1:21

Caring for zoo animals in Phoenix involves watering the turtles. Street surfaces are so hot in some places of Arizona that falling and lying on a surface can result in third degree burns. While Houston’s days may say 99 degrees, the weight of humidity raises the “feels like” possibility to over 100. Is it any wonder we envision stretches of polar ice? Global warming is not my climate change of choice. I have lived in days of no ac, drawing the blinds and sitting under an oscillating fan. One trip to England in summer offered only one small cube of ice that melted as I watched.

The rich and famous of the early Egyptians and Romans had means of gathering snow and preserving it in vaults near mountains for a cooling moment. Real progress in ice availability goes to the entrepreneurship of New Englander Fredric Tudor beginning in the early 1800’s. Over decades and financial failures and successes, he became a millionaire harvesting ice from various ponds and shipping it to far away places. He learned to pack it tightly and cover it with sawdust. (Yes, really!) Though progress required time in debtor’s prison, his ultimate success was shipping 180 T of ice for four months over 16,000 miles to India. 80 T survived the trip and made a profit. Tudor had the market cornered until the arrival of electricity and make your own ice at home.

Ice became a defining element in wise sayings. What you know is just the tip of the iceberg. That deal sounds risky, like walking on thin ice. Be on your guard talking to him; he can sell ice to an Eskimo. To break the ice I need to find a topic that interests everyone. Create a survival attitude by pouring a tall glass of iced tea, the Southern solution to hot days. I’m adding a memory of snow on my front yard and having to cover plants for protection. I really didn’t want that time to last very long either. In the larger picture, balance these two verses and look forward to the Autumnal Equinox.

As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow – Job 24:19

For as long as Earth lasts,
    planting and harvest, cold and heat,
Summer and winter, day and night
    will never stop.” Genesis 8:22

Every strength has a vocabulary special to its needs from cooking to investing to open heart surgery. I came to tangentially as a cocky second semester freshman. I went to college knowing I was strong in science and math as much as was offered in high school in 1950. I thought a good fit would be a lab technician. The first math required I took in summer school was a snap, and I chose to venture into deeper waters and signed up for Trigonometry for the fall semester. As the saying goes, “How the mighty has fallen.” In a class of all engineering males wearing wooden slide rules, I was one of two females and the other had her own slide rule and was also on the engineering track. I was not attractive enough to call on boy friend help and solid understanding seemed just out of reach. I did make a B along with a life changing decision that this path was not the best choice for me.

One more saying, “It’s an ill wind that blows no good” From that four months I learned how to back out of a parking place at an angle, turning enough to tangentially make an arc that misses the car next to me. A true tangent just touches: my tangents just miss and that is its own blessing.

Yes, deep intersections count in relationships, yet being near by for the moment needed yields results not always known until after the moment passes. I have taught children who passed though almost as shadows only to meet as adults and have them say, “Do you remember when we wrote Holiday Memories and posted them on our lockers?” I’ve had a basket of groceries and noticed the young mother balancing a baby and only one package of diapers standing behind me. In a slight peripheral moment, i’ve waved her ahead of me. The open smile she offered with a true thank you kept brightening an unfolding day for me. Time and effort is not always available to be a large scale caring action. Amazingly, the card written or the short phone contact defines a brush of air as a just right contact. Offer what you can tangentially. What you do may alter the trajectory of the future.

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone

Galatians 6:10

Male or female, out in the world professional or stay at home whatever, aged or 8th grader, if you missed being in a pre-school choir, you don’t have motion songs to call on for pop-up occasions. Last Thursday, my power went out as it is want to do for the 67 houses on our grid. While waiting on Center Point to do its magic of restoration, I unplugged devices that would be in danger from a sudden surge, started supper on my gas stove, and waited for light.

Friday morning I replugged and remembered that I hadn’t turned off the garage apartment ac. I couldn’t get a cooler number to come up, only the letters LC. No one was suffering without that cool and across Houston serious emergencies existed with ac problems. The technical son used his talent and said the LC stood for Low Coolant. I am on first name basis with the company I needed. The whole situation went on hold until Monday.

Bright and early, I explained what I needed to Monica (I told you first name basis). She said turn off the unit to be sure it was unfrozen and the service man would come Tuesday – you know the next sentence – between 8 – 12. Though thankfully it was a step forward, that meant I was tethered. No going out, no away from phone, no making a soufflé. My four year old choir sang, “What do you do on a rainy day when you can’t go out to play? ” You march, tip-toe, stomp, skip ( not very well), play a drum, bang a cymbal, or snap your fingers.

So, to the background music I filled in the morning. 8:00 Sarah was coming with croissants for a visit. That was a pleasant start. 9:00 I put on a pot of beans and set the timer so they wouldn’t cook dry while I forgot about them. Clothes could wash while the pot boiled. 10:00 Clothes in the drier and then put away and a few encouraging notes for the afternoon postal person under the umbrella to collect. 11:00 A blog needs to be written and this is an immediate topic. 11:45 Tension! Should I call to reschedule? Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock. 12:17. Marshall appeared and went straight back. You don’t need the whole sequence. Just know the sentence was, “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it.” All I had to do was make the plan for activity while I couldn’t go out to play.

In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.

Proverbs 16:9

Either by genetic disposition or maternal training I am a morning person. For the first part, I just seem to wake up and feel ready to get up. For the second part, our house marched from front door through living room, dining room, and ended in a perpendicular kitchen across the back. The other half of the house was two bedrooms, a bath, and a sleeping porch. When one came in the front door, an unmade bed or a sleeping teenager was immediately visible, and heaven forbid that either should be noted by friend or stranger. Factor in that those early hours were probably the best of South Louisiana in summer. Humidity hadn’t kicked in, and to quote a line from a book I am reading, “darkness was beginning to lighten with a touch of pearl as morning broke.”

With this as a backstory, I have spent my life training to live alone until about 8:00. Morning chores were much as yours are now. Some days I had to make starch (look it up on the internet) and put clothes mother had already washed on the line. Though the years there was always breakfast and organizing what needed to go to school as a student or a teacher. Once dressed and out in the world, choices seemed to vanish under what life required.

Now, it is pure pleasure that mornings are mine. Remember last week’s Rutina? I am in charge. Push the start on the coffee pot and peel a banana. Walk out to get the paper. Sit at the computer and do the NYT Mini Puzzle (not Wordle). I learn words like torus as the shape for a donut. Pour coffee and settle in my rocking chair with needs for being close at hand like a child with favorite toys. A list gives purpose to the day ahead even if rearranged during coming hours. I pray over what is coming and remind myself what day it is by name and date. The coffee cup is drained. Objects are restacked. I stand up and stretch. Today is at hand and tomorrow awaits.

A new day will dawn on us from above because our God is loving and merciful.

Luke 1:78