Labor Day Weekend

This is the weekend people eagerly await and yet often dread. It spells the official end of summer. Back in the '70s when I first started working, teachers in Baltimore County started the day after Labor Day and kids came that Thursday. A few years into my career they changed it so teachers started the Tuesday before Labor Day and kids started the Tuesday after. I never understood the wisdom in making the teachers start two weeks before the holiday and the kids one week before, but that has been the standard for a very long time. I guess Marylanders should not complain since many systems in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida started even earlier, in mid-August.

This is the first year I have been retired and did not go back to school. I really expected to sit poolside in Florida, drink in hand, laying on a lounge chair, gloating over the fact that I wasn't going back to work. Somehow that didn't happen. On the day the teachers went back to work and the following week when the kids started, I truly did not give it a single thought. There wasn't a single moment when I stopped and enjoyed the feeling of not going to school.

Maybe that was because I was just too busy with the new house, the doctor's visits for cancer, and the trips up and down the coast to and from Maryland. The days just sort of escaped me.

Maybe it's because I really missed it. After all, once I started to school myself in the fall of 1955 for kindergarten, I have ALWAYS started school in the fall either as a student or as a teacher. The only exception was the fall of 1979 when I stayed home for one school year after Lowell was born. I remember that when my Dad left teaching he commented that he missed the rhythm of the school year. I get that. There's a nice feeling to the start of a year, the long holidays, the anticipation of summer vacation. It has a rhythm to it that no other job has.

NAH! I don't MISS IT AT ALL! I'm just playing with you. I'm thrilled to death to be retired and sitting here on the lanai in Florida typing this blog today.

Still, I wish I did not have cancer, did not have to travel to and from doctor's appointments, did not face surgery on September 16 and all that radiation, did not worry about the prospect of more bad news from future pathology reports. I wish I was gloating over not going to school. I don't miss getting up in the morning to go to work or spending the day at work, but I miss my colleagues and many of the students. I wish them well this year. I hope they enjoy their students and their co-workers and the rhythm of the year.

Enjoy your Labor Day Weekend!!