My Spin: Labor Day is the saddest day of the year

by Tom Campbell, Executive Producer and Moderator, NC SPIN, September 7, 2015.

Ever since I was a child I’ve thought Labor Day was the saddest holiday of the year. It’s the official end of those “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” that Nat King Cole sang about. You didn’t even get to enjoy the whole day because you had to pack up and head home because the day after Labor Day was the official start of school. Days grew shorter. Nights grew cooler. Dinnertime and bed time followed schedules. The pace quickened to the point where you blinked your eye and it was Halloween, then Thanksgiving.

If I thought it was sad when I was a child it was even worse as an adult. Labor Day signaled the end of vacations until Thanksgiving. As a parent not only were you more restricted but you also had to instill new disciplines in children accustomed to playing out of doors ‘til dark. Homework had to be done, baths taken, early to bed and early to rise to get to school.

Whoever thought September was the right month to pay tribute to labor? I think you should move it to August 1^st, then emulate most of Europe in taking the month off from work.

Now that’s a holiday worth celebrating.

Nevertheless, we should celebrate labor everywhere. Our lives are so much better because of what others do for us and I am appreciative.