Tomorrow brings the oddest, least inspiring and most depressing of all possible paid days off. Labor Day is my favorite holiday, said no one, ever.
And this year’s Labor Day is the worst, because summer 2013 was struck down in its youth: Sept. 2 is just a day after the earliest possible Labor Day. And for kids, this summer started especially late because Superstorm Sandy shut down many tri-state-area schools for a week or more, forcing them to hold makeup days well into June.
What is Labor Day, anyway? We don’t even know. It was originally added to the American calendar by a presidential proclamation issued by John Quincy Adams to declare a national day of rest under the holiday’s original designation, “Ye Arse-End of Summer Hollidaye.”
Actually, the true history of Labor Day is even duller. It arose out of unionized workers’ demands following the 1894 Pullman Strike, which is right up there with the Teapot Dome Scandal and the Whiskey Rebellion among important American historical events you can never forget because you didn’t bother to learn about them in the first place.
Almost all of our other holidays are about beginnings — the birth of the new year or the presidents or Martin Luther King Jr. or baby Jesus or the Republic itself — but Labor Day is about giving up the ghost, shutting down the barbecue, putting the kayak in the shed and sitting shiva for summer. How are you supposed to enjoy a holiday weekend that’s like Cinderella’s clock ticking midnight?
Even the name sounds unpleasant rather than celebratory. Doesn’t “labor day” just mean work day? Aren’t most days work days?
Labor Day isn’t a celebration so much as a bouquet of weeds, a big box of negative energy. It’s a national day of decline, when summer’s bouncing, outdoorsy melody turns into a minor-key torch song about times gone by.
Summer break, summer flings, summer fun and summer houses: All over. Just to make sure there’s a foul odor in the air, Hollywood plays Fukushima every Labor Day, releasing into the atmosphere such toxic waste as the Sandra Bullock Razzie Award winner “All About Steve,” George Clooney’s interminable Euro-bore “The American,” the Drew Barrymore-Justin Long rom-com “Going the Distance,” Gerard Butler’s “Gamer” and, this year, the Ethan Hawke thriller “Getaway” — which really should have been called “Stayaway” or “Getalife.”
To the extent Labor Day heralds anything, it’s the onset of darkening evenings, falling temperatures and sidewalks turning into leaf mortuaries. They should call it Game of Thrones Day, because what it really says is: Winter is coming.
Labor Day lacks cute spokescritters like Easter bunnies or Thanksgiving turkeys, and it doesn’t have the historical freight of Veterans Day, Memorial Day or even Columbus Day (that October Monday you used to have off, until Christopher C. was downgraded from conquering hero to imperialist genocidal maniac).
Summer, we take back all that bitching we did during July’s heat wave. You know we love you best. For all your drawbacks, your strengths are legend: endless spectacular days, warm crickety nights, great (or at least expensive-looking) movies, fireworks and fireflies, bikinis and beaches.
Now Labor Day arrives like a frowning vice principal. In exchange for all of the negative feelings the day brings, the only compensation we get is . . . mattress sales. Two-for-one on a pack of Bic pens. Maybe a hot deal on a used Hyundai.
So I’ll take the day off, but don’t expect me to get too excited about it. Labor Day, you don’t work.