For Me? You Shouldn't Have

I was born on Thursday, Sept. 3, 1953, which was the day before the annual celebration of the Labor Day Weekend began. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, on June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland, a long-time opponent to organized labor, signed the Labor Day Holiday Bill, making the first Monday in September a federal holiday describing the holiday as "...a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country."

Both of my parents worked at a local factory and were proud members of the union. With Toledo being the industrial city that it was, Labor Day Weekend was considered a major holiday, and a variety of events, including parades, firework displays, and speeches were always scheduled, besides the Labor Day Parties celebrated at people's homes.

After my birth, a Labor Day/Linda's birthday party was always held at our house. I didn't understand what Labor Day was, nor did I care. My mother always told me that all of the hoopla was in celebration of my birthday, and I believed her. Plus, I always received a lot of really cool gifts from my parents' friends, like coloring books, jigsaw puzzles, and cut-outs. Everyone would be in the back-yard; the men sitting under the pear tree drinking beer and dodging falling pears, while the women, in their shirt-waist dresses, would be preparing the buffet of grilled hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, corn-on-the-cob, baked beans, and any other side dish that the women would bring to the potluck. We would eat all day, the Buckeye Beer flowed like a champagne fountain, and the Cain's potato chips were served in little white paper baskets that held approximately a good hand full of chips, for individual portions. The party would culminate at dusk after the fireworks display. Luckily for us, we lived on a street from which the fireworks were visible. Everyone would move out to the front-yard to watch the fireworks and then gather up their dishes and left-overs, and go home.

The other kids in the neighborhood would usually come over for my birthday bash, and while the adults drank and told stories, we would play the usual kid games, hide-and-seek, tag, dodge-ball, etc.

My mother had a peculiar sense of humor and loved practical jokes. She came up with one of her best jokes when I was about 7 or 8 years old. All of us kids were in the back-yard playing. It was just starting to get dark. She went into the house, covered herself with a white bed sheet (with cutout eye holes) and slipped out the front door. She walked through my neighbor's yard, and without being noticed, came back into our yard via the alley. With arms extended, and those huge, black eyeholes, and "woooooooo-ing" at various tones, she walked between the garage and the fence (which was approximately 4 feet wide) and then stopped just as she got into backyard, cutting off that route of escape. She stood there, with arms flailing, making ghost noises. She had already told her "adult" friends what she was going to do, and they played along by screaming, and running around the yard, and getting in the way of all the 7 and 8 year olds trying to make a break out of the yard. Every one of my friends escaped by climbing fences into neighbor's yards, or pushing past the adults, or getting on their hands and knees, crawling as fast as they could. I knew it was my mother, but try telling that to a group of terrified children who were running for the lives. All I could say was, "Maaaaaa, you scared them away." She laughed as hard as I had ever seen her laugh. She thought that that was one of her best and funniest pranks ever.

To some people, Labor Day weekend signifies the end of summer, the return to school, or the long drought until the next day off from work, but Labor Day will always be special to me and in a small way, I still believe that a little bit of the hoopla is part of my birthday celebration.