Welcome Labor Day!

Labor Day is like a logic circuit to me; as one gate closes another automatically opens. It signals the end of summer and the beginning of my favorite time of the year.

Football games every Sunday, Monday nights and sometimes on Saturdays, too. Then there is the all-important game on Thanksgiving Day.

The weather man forecasts cool fronts, rain, sometimes snow in higher elevations. Leaves are turning color and as they fall they blanket our lawns and litter the streets. Flocks of migrating birds can be both seen and heard overhead as they head south to wait out the winter in the north. Early morning school buses cruise through the neighborhoods picking up children and making people waiting in cars behind them impatient. Windows are opened to air out the summer and refresh our homes with the coolness of fall. All manner of winter clothing is removed from storage and hung in closets just waiting for Jack Frost to redden our noses and cheeks. Ah, there is much about this time of year that warms the cockles of my heart. How come those cockles don't show up in x-rays?

Parents see Christmas coming, usually faster than they want, but mum's the word. Perhaps if they don't mention Christmas it will not come so quickly. Although, plans are made, even if just in their thoughts, about lay-a-ways.

Stores, however, start putting up Christmas decorations and displays usually right after the second pop quiz in math. They can hardly wait for Christmas, hoping this one coming will be a boon for business that hasn't been seen for a few seasons.

Backyards are cleaned up and winterized, storm windows installed, lawnmowers serviced and stored and the snowblowers taken out of storage.

There are many tasks, both pleasant and laborious, that are awakened like a hibernating bear after Labor Day has passed into history. In spite of the prospect of a hard winter, people get excited, albeit to different degrees, about the coming holidays. Especially football enthusiasts.

I love the holidays. Except for one thing: I cannot take another viewing of "It's A Wonderful Life." Enough already. I'd rather be raking leaves then have to endure another broadcast of that movie. Yes, it is a wonderful movie; if you've never seen it before or can count on only one hand how many times you've seen it. When you have to go to the fingers of your other hand, that is too many times.

Let me be the first to wish all of you Happy Holidays, which includes Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year. Now, that should shorten my Christmas card list.