Down To The Wire

The last two weeks before the Labor Day holiday, with roads and beaches more crowded than they were all season and the hours of daylight beginning to wane, are accompanied by an almost perceptible heightening of sensibilities.

Time is precious as the days run down to the wire. Parking spaces in particular rouse passions. Someone steals a handicapped sticker from a 78-year-old man's car while he's at mass; someone else stands in a vacant spot to save it for a friend and a car tries to push her out of the way. A visiting family despairs of finding a place to put the car and pitches a picnic on a dreary road shoulder instead. No one wants to waste the final moments of August making fruitless circles around a packed lot, so the East Hampton Village Police cordon off the big one behind Main Street to save them the trouble.

Labor Day is always a bittersweet occasion, especially in a resort community. Coming this year on the very first day of September, while a tumultuous summer is still at its height, it is doubly so.

The East End is full of people who feel strongly about this particular holiday. Either they cannot bear to see it come or they cannot wait.