The Sunday before Labor Day! By this time, way back in my young world in the 1950’s my summer crew cut, the one Joe and Son’s Barber Shop, located across from Sterrett School, now closed for the season, had grown into a regular back to school (he needs his new school year hair cut), long enough for my grandmother to say I would need a bobby pin to keep my hair from looking like a girl’s! And those SPECIAL EXTRA HARDY shoes my parents bought my little sister and I, from Father and Son’s Shoe store in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, the shoes with at least two inches of pure bouncy rubber soles on the bottom to keep busy kids active all summer long, with only ONE pair of shoes, had finally melted away, leaving only a plastic shield between my feet and the cement, requiring a trip to another shoe store, Little’s Shoe store in Squirrel Hill, my neighborhood, for fancier and a bit more expensive shoe to last at least until Passover! The Sunday before Labor Day, I would wonder, how tall all my classmates had grown, knowing for some reason I seemed to remain always a bit short.
The Sunday before Labor Day! My Father and a few of his Police Station crew (at the time, Station Number Eleven located on Northumberland Street) would walk the streets of North of Forbes and place twelve-inch flags on the lawns of every home, all of this paid for by the business owners of the Forbes and Murray retail businesses. Charcoal grills would already be set out, talk about where you might stand to watch the Labor Day Parade on Monday, was shared, and groups of kids would make one more round with their official Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon collection cans, hoping to see their names mentioned the next day on KDKA Channel 2’s 24-hour presentation of the telethon. (We had all lived through the polio epidemic and knew just how dangerous some of these mystery illnesses could get!) There was still the humid aroma of summer oozing in the air, but even though, the summer heat was around, somewhere, as a kid, if you stopped long enough from being especially overly active, (trying to get in ALL of your summer vacation fun before it was too late,) the smell of autumn was waiting, providing a sniff here and there of soon to be Pittsburgh grey, and the dread of less sunlight and homework!
Sunday, September 6, 2020, the Sunday before Labor Day, I am now 70 years old, having experienced six decades of the Sunday before Labor Day, and never in my life, of those years that I can truly recall and remember, have I ever been so overwhelmed with this dread, and depression, angst and anger, and fear of what comes next.
“The summer knows, the summer's wise
She sees the doubts within your eyes
And so she takes her summer time
Tells the moon to wait and the sun to linger
Twists the world 'round her summer finger
Lets you see the wonder of her arm?
And if you've learned your lesson well
There's little more for her to tell
One last caress, it's time to dress for fall” (The Summer Knows/Marilyn &Alan Bergman)
