Every February 2nd in Punxsutawawney Pennsylvania, Phil the Groundhog pops out of his den. If he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. In South Alabama, we have Cleatus The Redneck Chipmunk. Each Labor Day, he pops out of his beer can and, if he sees his shadow, it's six more weeks of summer. 

Hint: Cleatus always sees his shadow. 

Regardless of what Cleatus saw, or the fact that summer doesn't officially end until September 22nd, or it doesn't get cool down here until mid-October, summer culturally is over.  Amid sweltering humidity and heat, autumn's rituals have begun, and that's what really matters to me.  Personally, Labor Day is more like New Years Day than January 1st.  For me, 2023 has already started. 

New Year's Day doesn't feel like the start of something new to me. In fact, it sucks. It lies deep in the heart of winter. December and January blur together in a gray morass.  In January,  you have only more work, school and winter to look forward to. Spring is still so far away. Other than the holidays to break life's routine, nothing else changes before or after New  Years Day. For the kids, school simply resumes where it left off. For adults, work remains the same as before but now we're more in debt following Christmas. It was cold before, and will be cold after. The last digit on the calendar changes, but life still has the same flavor until spring arrives. There has been no significant transition, except perhaps taking down the Christmas tree.

Labor Day is far different. 

Everything changes after Labor Day. In American life, this is the point  our lifecycles reset. The Autumn Equinox is invigorating, as compared to the endless deadness of the Winter Solstice. You feel fall with every sense. Depending where you live, the very air seems to come alive with crispness, coolness, and fresh smells. Change imprints memories. You remember September, but January is a blur. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. Go Google songs about September, and then songs about January.

September songs - classics! January songs - not so much.  

September is a season of change. School has begun for the kids, but they are not the same kids that left school only a few months earlier. They are different: a new grade, older, and physically different than last year. Maybe new clothes and a new attitude (good or bad). Maybe new acne and an attraction to the opposite sex.  High schoolers have become college kids, or working adults. No matter that age they are, they've undergone a metamorphosis. A transition has taken place, one you likely captured with a photo on the first day of school. 

In fact, go back and look at your family photos and you'll probably realize that most of them were taken from September through December. 

In September there are so many things to look forward to! Fall festivals are everywhere. September is a season for planning, and looking forward to the coming weeks.  High school football reigns under the Friday night lights. College and pro football has gotten underway. Hunting seasons replace fishing.  People begin to draw up Halloween plans, and wonder what costume they will wear. People start making their travel plans for Thanksgiving. Wal-Mart is replacing pool supplies with Christmas supplies, and many of us will begin our holiday shopping.  For me, I call this the beginning of "attic season", where I begin taking decorations out of the attic. All of those decorations are put away after New Year, which signals more of an end than a new beginning. 

So begins the season of phone calls that end with "What are we doing?" and "When will you get here?" and "I can't wait to see you again!"  New Years Day, on the other hand, is a time for phrases like, "Be careful driving home" and "When will we see you again?" and "I'll miss you" and "My diet starts tomorrow."

New Years Day is a bittersweet time of endings, goodbyes, and putting things away in the attic, and knowing I have to go back to work the next day. Simply put, New Years Day makes me feel older because it compels me to look back.

Labor Day signals new beginnings, transitions, renewal, revelry, reunion, family, thanksgiving, and worship that all culminates on New Year's Day. For me, Labor Day isn't the end of summer so much as it is truly the beginning of a new year in my life. Labor Day makes me feel younger because it compels me to look ahead. 

So, for those that feel the way I do, let's raise a toast to Cleatus as he crawls back into his beer can.

 Happy New Year, everyone.

We were expecting a new baby and my lovely bride’s nesting instincts kicked into high gear. She didn’t want to bring a new baby home to a dirty house, so she called a maid service and told me to take the kids and get lost for about four hours.

I had planned a day in the park, but Mother Nature had other ideas. Cold rain and sleet pelted the city all day.  Then I had a great idea: I’d take the boys to the public library! I hadn’t been to a library in years and was looking forward to the experience. My kids quickly found books and quietly settled in for a good read.  Not possessing a library card, I headed for the front desk.

The bespectacled gentleman behind the desk kindly directed me to a table covered with application forms.  It was fairly standard – name, address, phone number, e-mail. I quickly filled out the form and signed my John Hancock on the bottom, signifying my understanding the library police would find me if I was late returning a book. 

I returned to the desk where the same gentlemen carefully inspected my form.

“Would you like internet access, sir?”

“Yes, certainly.” 

“Then you’ll have to fill out the back, too.”

“Oh, okay.” I flipped the form over. With the exception of a question asking what password I wanted and what level of internet access I desired, the form was almost identical to the front. 

I went back to the table and wrote in a password I could easily remember and checked my desired access level. I returned to the gentlemen behind the counter, who inspected the back of the form. 

“You need to write down your name, address, phone number and e-mail address.”

I was a little perturbed, but didn’t show it. 

“All that information is on the front of the form. Do I have to fill out the name and address information again?”

“Yes, please.”

“Ah...okay.” 

A few minutes later I was back with my library card form, both front and back completely filled out. 

The diligent municipal civil servant carefully eyed both sides of the form for well over a minute, turning it over several times and strumming his fingers nervously.  I was getting nervous, too. Did he know about all my overdue books from 4th grade? 

“Sir, I need your full middle name on this line.” 

“That’s my legal payroll signature block. Why do you need my full middle name?”

“I’m sorry sir, but that’s our policy. I need your full middle name.”

I sighed and added the rest of my middle name to the initial. 

“On the back side, too, please.”

Keep your cool.

“Okay.”

Once again he studied the library card form. Chewing on the end of his pencil, he flipped the form back and forth. 

“I need to see a picture ID.”

I pulled out my active duty military identification card and handed it to him. He didn’t give it a second glance and handed it back to me. 

“Do you have a driver’s license?”

“Why yes, I do.”

“May I see it, please?”

“Why? Won’t my military ID do?”

“No.”

Resigned, I pulled out my driver’s license. Being in the military, I had a different permanent home of record than my current duty assignment.  Since I renewed it in the mail, my license had no picture. He looked at me, looked my drivers license, back to me, then back to the license. 

“This is out of state and doesn’t have a picture.”

“I’ve been stationed here for almost three years. I’m rather fond of my photo on my military I.D, would you like to see that one again?”

He handed my license back. 

“Is this address correct?”

“The one on the front or the back of the form?”

Alarmed, he quickly turned the paper over, then shot me a nasty look - smartass. 

I smiled. 

“Do you have something with your current address on it?”

“Yes, you’re holding it.” 

“No, I mean something official.” 

I fumbled through my wallet. Funny, but nowhere among the countless unpaid credit cards, membership cards, and receipts did I have anything with my current address on it. 

“No, I guess not.”

“I’m sorry then, but I can’t issue you a library card.” 

Here I stood, able to produce two legal forms of ID, one of which was the ID card of an active duty military officer in the armed forces of the United States, and I couldn’t get a public library card. 

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I don’t kid about things like this.” 

“Let me try this again,” I said calmly, “What do I have to do today so I can get a library card and check out some books for my kids so they won’t go home heartbroken?”

I really think the guy wanted to help. It was either believe that or strangle him. 

Looking out the window at the downpour he smiled and asked, “Did you drive here?” 

After running through the parking lot in the pouring rain, I returned with my car registration; definitive, legal, soggy proof I actually lived where I said I lived. With a self-satisfied smile the Dewy Decimal Defender presented me my library card like a war medal.  I looked over my shoulder hoping someone was taking a photo for posterity. 

“Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”

“Actually, yes there is,” I said, stuffing my new library card in my wallet next to my soaked automobile paperwork. “Get a job at voter registration.”

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