Too many years ago, I can count the years but admitting out loud how many, is a bit frightening, as I simply cannot account for just how quickly time had passed, (and where was I during those flash of days, minutes and seconds), on June 20thor the 21st, depending on that particular year, our Pittsburgh Public Schools ended their session, and the joy of summer began! (Of course, nothing seems endless unless you consider the universe, and NOW the Trump Administration), But back then Labor Day was always too far in the future to even consider. As a regular routine, while my younger sister and I were enrolled in Elementary School, my father would actually pick us up from Linden School (back in the day everyone walked, and only a handful of REALLY RICH kid’s parents collected them from the entrance of the school) and we would drive to the East Liberty neighborhood, to arrive at a retail shop called Father and Son Shoes, and both my little sister and I would get our one official pair of footwear, a pair of dark blue canvas shoes each with a two-inch rubber soles which somehow was glued onto the entire shoe. Girls did wear pink back in the day, and surprisingly just for the summer Father and Son Shoes carried pink canvass shoes just for girls, but with the same two-inch rubber soles!
Once we purchased our shoes, my father would drive to Jerry’s Barber Shop across from another public school called Starrett, my sister, would be told how cute she was and how much they loved her PINK shoes, and I would receive MY official summer cut, something called a Butch Cut, which came with a round rubber brush and some kind of polish to keep my hair high and tight and stuck to my head. Much to my mother’s dismay, my little sister would also receive a girl’s version of the same haircut, but thank God, less dramatic but VERY short almost as if a bowl was placed over her head. We never complained (While we were young, as in Kindergarten to third grade all was well, but once I entered fourth grade, there was LOTS of “are you serious” conversations to be had.) The FINALE, however, was a trip to the ISALY’S Ice Cream store, (their headquarters on the Boulevard of the Allies where my younger sister, Francie and I could purchase ANY sundae, cone or Eskimo Pie selection we wanted. Life was good back then, and summer was sweet, LONG, and full of adventure. There were two clues, however, that Labor Day was approaching, and with it, the IDEA that yucky school would begin again, and those clues included, the thickness of the rubber on our shoes growing smaller and smaller and the length of our hair growing longer and longer.
Back in the Day, the city of Pittsburgh held VERY large and relevant Labor Day Parades, as Pittsburgh proudly was a city of unions, of Steel Workers, Aluminum Workers, unions for the Police, the Firemen (yes they were all men back then), and a variety of other laborers who helped create a Middle Class whose dollars went to provide programs for Public Education, and who voted for politicians not afraid of encouraging programs promoting, health, housing, education, and feeding the poor. (As is always the case and I being well aware of it…we sometime mix the facts and the fiction when remembering the past, but my recollection had more good, than bad, when it came to the needs of the average American.) Labor Day 2019 is here, and too many decades later, I am not filled with the hopes, and dreams, adventures, and purpose, the future of our Nation may provide. I see a blustering, blistered, bigoted bully, dining on the fears and prejudices of stupid people, too insecure, to even establish their own security. My memories of this past summer were filled with fear, loathing, and a true disbelief that MY country had turned into nothing but a Banana Republic, a dictatorship, run by an idiot, for whom, if the end result is not to his benefit, then he will create enough of a tantrum and screw everyone in sight. Happy Labor Day 2019 America, or should we begin to say in Russian: schastlivy delat' bol'she Truda, segodnya den' ili umeret', Happy, do more labor today or die!
