Famous Times

It was just me and the kids on Labor Day and we did nothing but kick it at home all day. My friends in town were all busy doing something so it made for an extra long day. The kids spent much of the day making art. I cooked a ridiculously huge feast for just the 3 of us--I'm talking grilled beer can chicken, caprese salad, roasted corn on the cob, sauteed spinach, and huge slices of watermelon. It seemed like everyone in the world was probably doing some grand thing on the holiday. Last night I was talking to my neighbor and she asked how our Labor Day was--when I told her it was long and lonely she said hers was hardly any different. We came up with this: there's so much stock in doing something memorable or eventful on those holidays, in making it a big to-do, but most people are probably sitting there thinking it's everyone else having all those famous times. The grass is always greener kind of thing, but really the grass is pretty much the same. Perhaps most were doing the same thing I was, perhaps very few actually had one of those famous times kind of days (that phrase "famous times" by the way is in one of my favorite short stories by Richard Ford and I always thought it'd make a great tattoo). Perhaps we're all more alike than we let on.