A boy’s last hurrah of summer
Labor Day is honored in the United States because it symbolizes
the strides made by the common working man to gain the rewards and
dignity due him.
But to two boys in Toledo 60 years ago it offered the final
opportunity to enjoy summer before school resumed for another nine
months.
A boy’s last hurrah of summer
Labor Day is honored in the United States because it symbolizes the strides made by the common working man to gain the rewards and dignity due him.
But to two boys in Toledo 60 years ago it offered the final opportunity to enjoy summer before school resumed for another nine months.
Wayne Helms and I were drawn together through extreme polarity. He was a short, stocky youth who excelled in sports and in being able to find fun in anything. I was tall, gangling and awkward with an unsavory reputation for liking books.
My father was a member of the local Teamsters’ union and faithfully observed any tribute to the working class. When he said the whole family was going out to Point Place for the Labor Day picnic, I asked Wayne along.
The day was hot and humid like most summer days in the Midwest, but boys of that time and place had little regard for weather if there was a chance for fun. From previous union picnics, I knew fun was assured.
Nodding at my mother’s admonition to stay out of trouble and out of the sun, Wayne and I took off on our own as soon as the car parked. Within a minute we came upon a man grilling hamburgers and hot dogs. “Help yourself, boys,” he said. “It’s all on the Teamsters.”
We each grabbed two hamburgers and hot dogs, and went to the adjoining table where a woman was setting up paper cups of free root beer. “You boys better have one,” she said. We obliged her, and took another with us.
We found ourselves at the water’s edge and waded in to look for frogs. After a few minutes of feckless splashing we went back to the grill for a repeat of the hamburgers. We each had two. We weren’t really hungry any more but boys will be pigs.
Looking back at it now, I realize that we were going through the paces, dutifully following the blueprint of a good time, much like adults inching along in gridlock for hours because it’s a long weekend and they’re on holiday. The hamburgers and soda were free so we took more.
We were strangely subdued by the time my younger sister found us and said that our own picnic was ready. My mother filled two paper plates with her special potato salad, hamburgers and – as a special treat – baked beans, a family favorite.
Wayne winced as he took his plate but gamely dug in. However, the first mouthful of beans proved his undoing; he hurried to a nearby tree and let go. The sight of him in racking convulsions prompted me to join him.
On the way home we were nursing headaches, the backs of our necks were sore from the sun and we were logy. But we had wrung out every last bit of the summer, even as it had wrung us out. We had done our duty as boys pursuing pleasure.
