A Summer Song
With Labor Day weekend just around the corner, I cringe to think about the hordes of tourists about to descend upon our mountaintop communities. Let’s hope they behave themselves and enjoy the natural beauty of the San Bernardino National Forest, even though many of the mountain’s traditional holiday activities have been canceled due to the ongoing pandemic.
Never fear, though, you can still go boating on Lake Gregory, if you bring your own canoe or kayak. And fishing and hiking around the lake are still available. I suspect most of the campgrounds are already booked and sold out, so, hopefully there won’t be a bunch of yahoos setting up camp and barbecues on our highway turnouts, like they did last weekend. One thing I’ll be missing this year is the bikini-clad beach babes, who won’t be able to sun themselves on our lakeshore, again due to the pandemic closing down our beaches.
There’s always the Labor Day weekend yard sales, if you enjoy buying other people’s used and unwanted clothing and other useless junk and collectables. Personally, I don’t do yard sales, but the missus does. She often finds used record albums and snaps them up for me, if they are something I don’t already own.
Labor Day weekend heralds the end of summer, even though it doesn’t officially end until the Sept. 23 Autumnal Equinox. Back in the day, my summer was all about camping in the High Sierras, cruisin’ Balboa Peninsula and Bob’s Big Boy on Whittier Boulevard, body-surfing at Corona Del Mar and trying to hook up with the bikini-clad beach babes.
Now-a-days, I tend to avoid going anywhere on holiday weekends because everywhere you go it’s overcrowded, everything is overpriced – especially gasoline – and the bumper-to-bumper drive home when the party’s over is horrendous. So, this year I plan to stay home and continue with my summer-long house painting project, which should be completed by the end of Labor Day weekend.
Just like other holidays that have lost their true meaning, Labor Day has evolved into a three-day weekend focused on yard sales, backyard barbecues and an excuse to get rip-roaring drunk. Well, if that’s what you’re gonna do, at least raise your glass and propose a toast to what’s left of the working-class heroes of America.
By the way, what ever happened to those working-class heroes? Sorry… many of them, once again due to the pandemic, lost their jobs, while rest were outsourced to China, Malaysia and somewhere south of the border.
As for me, I’m going to enjoy what’s left of summer in peace and solitude, after all the tourists are gone… until next summer. In the meantime: “They say that all good things must end someday, autumn leaves must fall. But don’t you know that it hurts me so to say goodbye to you. Wish you didn’t have to go, no, no, no, no. And when the rain beats against my window pane, I’ll think of summer days again and dream of you.” (“A Summer Song” – Chad & Jeremy – 1964)
Keep it flyin’ Uncle Mott