Labor Day Memories

What are your Labor Day memories? Do you have memories of going to your favorite pool for the last time of the season? Do you have memories of family picnics or outings to mark the unofficial end of summer? Possibly you have memories of packing your school bag with the anticipation of a new school year.

The Labor Day Holiday brings memories to my mind of digging potatoes. Potatoes?

Yes, every Labor Day my Dad would wake up his three children (which I was the youngest) to work in the garden and dig up a fairly large garden of potatoes. It was usually a hot day filled with manual labor of digging rows of potatoes, picking up potatoes, collecting them into burlap sacks, and transporting them to our family’s basement that served as a cool cellar for our family potato bins.

As a kid, I hated Labor Day and I thought it was aptly named. What I could not figure out was why others enjoyed the holiday? And … Why in the world was there a holiday designated for families to work? It didn’t seem like much of a holiday to me as a young child and adolescent.

As an adult I look back with fondness of those Labor Day’s spent with my family. I realize now that it was a day for my Dad to spend with the three children he loved dearly. It was an excellent opportunity to learn from a hardworking father, the value of a good work ethic. It was also a small price to pay for a middleclass family to save a lot of money on groceries throughout the year that no doubt allowed my parents to pay for three children to complete a college education, and walk away from college with no personal debt.

Now that my Dad is no longer with us, I would gladly trade a leisurely day in an air-conditioned house, for one more opportunity to dig potatoes with my Dad. It also leads me to the recognition that “Labor” is a good thing and maybe it is a good thing that we have one day a year to celebrate it … and for me to cherish memories of digging potatoes with a remarkable man, that I was privileged to know as “Dad!”