SATURDAY MORNING WITH CRANKY DON JOE | We Have a 4-Day Labor Day Weekend, So Everybody Suddenly Remembered the State Fair, the Cookout and the Entire Rest of Summer

By Cranky Don Joe

My name is Cranky Don Joe. Cranky DJ to a lot of my neighbors.

I am not an expert. Which immediately makes me more qualified than anybody who scheduled fourteen recreational activities during a four-day weekend that was allegedly created to give working people a day off.

Friends, I fundamentally misunderstood Labor Day. For most of my life, I thought Labor Day was a holiday from labor. You worked hard all year, summer began winding down, and somebody in the federal government apparently looked at the American worker and said, "You know what? Take Monday off." That sounded reasonable.

Then I met Minnesotans.

Apparently, Labor Day weekend is not a period of restful reflection. It is a 96-hour emergency operation during which we must complete every summer activity we forgot to do between Memorial Day and last Thursday. Nobody informed me of this until Larry came over Friday morning carrying a plastic clipboard.

I should explain that Larry does not normally carry a clipboard. Larry carrying a clipboard is like a raccoon carrying a credit card: whatever happens next will involve chaotic decisions nobody authorized.

"What is that?" I asked. "Our weekend itinerary." "Our what?" "Labor Day weekend master itinerary."

I stared at him. "Larry, it's a holiday." "Exactly, Don. We have four full days." "Four days to do what?"

He looked at the clipboard. "State Fair today. Cookout tomorrow. Lake Sunday morning. Maybe the Renaissance Festival Sunday afternoon. Apple orchard Monday."

I waited while he continued looking at me. "That's it?" "We should probably squeeze in an outdoor patio somewhere." "Larry, when do we rest?" "Monday evening." "The holiday is officially over Monday evening." "Exactly."

Friends, whenever somebody uses the word "maximize" while discussing leisure, leisure has already been murdered.

This is apparently what happens in Minnesota when September appears on the calendar. People who spent June saying, "We've got the whole summer," and July saying, "We should definitely do that sometime," suddenly reach Labor Day weekend and discover that "sometime" has filed for bankruptcy. Now everybody is panicking: we haven't been to the State Fair, we haven't gone to the lake, we haven't had everybody over, we haven't used the fire pit, we haven't gone to the cabin, we haven't gone apple picking, and we haven't eaten on the patio!

Friends, calm down. Summer is a season, not an airline boarding gate. Nobody is going to announce over a loudspeaker Monday evening, "Final call for outdoor recreation; all remaining Minnesotans should report immediately to Lake Minnetonka."

You would never know that from Larry, however. His first priority was the State Fair because, according to him, "This is basically our last chance." I reminded him that the Minnesota State Fair had been operating for more than a week.

"Why didn't we go on Tuesday?" I asked. "It wasn't urgent on Tuesday."

There it is. Apparently, Larry cannot enjoy recreation unless recreation carries a strict deadline. Now the fair is approaching its final days and everybody who spent the previous week saying, "Maybe next weekend," has suddenly remembered that next weekend has arrived.

This is one of the great Minnesota traditions nobody advertises: the State Fair opens, people have plenty of time, they discuss going, they think about going, they watch other people go, they read about new deep-fried foods, they see photographs of people eating new deep-fried foods, and they ask coworkers whether the new foods were good. Then Labor Day weekend arrives and approximately half the state wakes up in bed screaming, "WE HAVEN'T GONE TO THE FAIR!" Now it's an emergency.

Larry wanted to arrive early. "Before the crowds," he insisted.

I looked at him. "Larry, everybody is trying to arrive before the crowds." "That's why we need to leave earlier." "Earlier than everybody else who is trying to leave early?" "Exactly." "So if several thousand people simultaneously leave early to beat traffic, what have they created?"

He thought about it. "Early traffic."

Progress. At least the man is teachable.

The State Fair alone is enough recreational activity for one weekend. You walk for hours, stand in lines, visit exhibit buildings, eat foods your digestive system did not approve during preliminary negotiations, inspect heavy machinery, and carry plastic objects handed to you by exhibitors because apparently no Minnesotan can refuse a free yardstick. By the time you leave, your feet hurt, your shirt has acquired mustard from an unknown source, and you are carrying enough promotional literature to refinance a small municipality. That should count as the entire weekend.

No. According to Larry's clipboard, Saturday was reserved for the family cookout.

This is where Labor Day weekend becomes dangerous. A family cookout begins innocently when somebody sends a text message: "We're just having a few people over Saturday." Never believe that sentence! There has never been "a few people" at a Midwestern family cookout. A few people means eight confirmed adults, six unconfirmed adults, nine children, somebody's cousin who is "probably stopping by," two neighbors who were not invited but smelled charcoal, and one gentleman nobody can identify who has been sitting near the cooler since 2:15 p.m.

Then everybody brings food—far too much food. This happens because nobody trusts anybody else's estimate of how much food human beings require. The host buys hamburgers and hot dogs; somebody brings chicken; somebody else brings ribs because apparently the chicken looked lonely; an aunt arrives carrying potato salad in a tub large enough to bathe an infant; and another relative brings baked beans, coleslaw, corn, watermelon, chips, dip, macaroni salad, cupcakes, brownies, and cookies. By 3:00 p.m., the folding table looks like a humanitarian relief operation.

Larry walked into the backyard carrying two aluminum pans. "What is that?" I asked. "Chicken." "We already have chicken, Larry." "This is a different chicken." "How?" "Mine is grilled." "The other chicken is also grilled." "Different seasoning."

Friends, this is how food surpluses happen. Nobody at a Labor Day cookout is willing to bring an amount of food proportionate to the number of people attending. We cook as though a bus containing forty unexpected relatives could pull into the driveway at any moment.

Then something even stranger happens. At approximately 7:00 p.m., the cookout stops being a social gathering and becomes a mandatory food distribution center. Suddenly everybody is being assigned leftovers.

"Take some chicken." "No, thank you." "Take it!" "I already have food at home." "Take some potato salad." "I don't want potato salad." "We can't keep all this food!" "Then why did you make six pounds of it?" "We thought people would eat!" "People did eat, Brenda! You prepared for the Minnesota National Guard!"

Plastic containers appear out of nowhere. Nobody knows whose containers they are. The host begins dividing food like a federal surplus commodities manager. Larry walked toward me carrying a foil-covered paper plate.

"No," I said. "I didn't say anything, Don." "You were approaching me with leftovers." "There's some ribs." "I have ribs at home." "These are good ribs." "Were the ribs I ate earlier bad ribs?" "No." "Then why do I need emergency ribs?" "You can have them tomorrow." "Tomorrow I am apparently going to a lake!"

He had forgotten; I had not. Sunday morning, according to the clipboard, was our designated opportunity to "enjoy the water."

Friends, water has been available since May. Minnesota did not install lakes specifically for Labor Day weekend, and there are more than enough lakes here for everybody to have visited one before September. But something about the final holiday weekend creates pure panic. Suddenly people who have not touched a life jacket since 2023 are tying kayaks to automobiles, paddleboards appear, coolers are loaded, fishing poles emerge from garages, and trailered boats are dragged toward water because their owners suddenly remember that boating was one of their summer goals.

Larry wanted to borrow a kayak. "Do you kayak?" I asked. "I've kayaked." "When?" "A while ago." "When, Larry?" "2019." "You don't kayak, Larry. You have kayaked." "Same thing." "No. I had my tonsils removed in 1964; that doesn't make me a surgeon."

He said kayaking was easy. Whenever Larry describes an activity as easy, I immediately begin looking for emergency medical contacts.

Fortunately, by Sunday afternoon his physical enthusiasm had weakened. The cookout had left him tired, the State Fair had left his feet sore, and he had eaten something at breakfast that he described only as "possibly too much."

This, I thought, was our opening. We could stop, we could go home, we could sit down, and we could perform the radical Labor Day activity known as doing absolutely nothing.

Then Larry looked at his clipboard. "We could still make the Renaissance Festival."

I stared at him for several seconds. "Larry, you are exhausted." "I'm fine." "You're walking like your left leg belongs to somebody else." "I'll loosen up." "You don't need to loosen up; you need a recliner." "But it's Labor Day weekend!"

There it was again, as if Labor Day weekend were not a holiday but a court order. We have four days, therefore all four days must be filled: no blank spaces, no wasted mornings, no unplanned afternoons, and no sitting on the porch for two hours watching absolutely nothing happen. We must maximize, optimize, schedule, and experience. Friends, I remember when relaxing did not require project management software.

Monday brought the final phase of Larry's campaign: apple picking. This is one of my favorite seasonal mysteries. For eleven months of the year, Americans purchase apples from grocery stores with zero emotional difficulty. Then September arrives and suddenly we drive thirty-five minutes into the countryside to perform agricultural labor ourselves.

Larry says, "It's about the experience." Of course it is. Whenever somebody tells you something is "about the experience," prepare to pay money for physical work that somebody else normally performs.

"There are apples at the grocery store, Larry." "It's not the same." "You're right. Those apples have already been picked; the difficult portion is complete." "You get to choose your own!" "I choose my own at Cub Foods." "From the tree, Don!" "The tree is an unnecessary middleman."

He shook his head. "You don't understand tradition."

I understand tradition. I also understand that if somebody charges me admission and hands me an empty canvas bag so I can harvest my own produce, I will accidentally become seasonal farm staff.

Still, beneath all my complaining, I understand what is happening on Labor Day weekend. Minnesotans know what comes next; nobody needs to say it out loud. The mornings begin changing, the light looks different, school starts again, schedules tighten, cabins close, boats come out of the water, and patio furniture begins its migration toward garages. There will still be warm days, but Labor Day carries psychological weight. It feels like a border between the loose possibilities of summer and the structured months ahead.

So people try to hold on: one more State Fair trip, one more cookout, one more afternoon near the water, one more patio lunch, one more family gathering, and one more ridiculous amount of potato salad. We tell ourselves we are trying to finish summer, although summer was never an official assignment.

That may be why we exhaust ourselves. We become so afraid of wasting free time that we turn free time into another form of work. We schedule relaxation, optimize recreation, create itineraries for leisure, and drive through heavy traffic to reach somewhere peaceful, then rush home from the peaceful place because we have another peaceful activity scheduled at 4:30 p.m. By Monday evening, everybody needs Tuesday off to recover from having Monday off.

There is something deeply human in that. We know time moves, children go back to school, people get older, and traditions change. There are only so many summers when everybody can make the cookout, only so many State Fair trips with a child before that child becomes the adult organizing the trip, and only so many evenings when the weather, the schedule, and the people we love all cooperate at once.

Maybe that is why we try to squeeze too much into these weekends. We are not really afraid of wasting Labor Day; we are afraid of wasting time. I can forgive that. What I cannot forgive is Brenda sending me home with three pounds of potato salad.

By Monday evening, I finally escaped: no Fair, no lake, no orchard, no grill, and no traffic. I sat on my porch with a cold glass of lemonade, and for twenty uninterrupted minutes, I did absolutely nothing.

Friends, it was magnificent: no itinerary, no parking fees, no admission ticket, no reservation, and nobody handed me a wristband. Nobody asked whether I wanted to try a new deep-fried food, nobody told me we needed to leave early to beat traffic, and nobody was distributing leftover chicken. I sat there listening to the neighborhood settle down and realized that this might have been the first actual holiday activity I had experienced all weekend.

Then I saw Larry crossing the street. He still had the clipboard.

I considered going inside, but it was too late.

"Don!" he called out. I pretended not to hear him. "Don!" "What, Larry?"

He walked onto the porch. "You ready?" "For what?" "The Fair."

I stared at him. "We already went to the Fair." "I know." "Then why would we go again?" "Last day!" "Larry..." "We can catch the final couple of hours!" "No." "Come on, Don, last chance!" "No." "We could get something to eat." "I have eighteen pounds of food in my refrigerator!" "They have fresh cheese curds." "No." "Mini donuts?" "No." "Sweet Martha's?"

I stood up. For one terrible moment, Larry smiled because he thought he had won. I walked into the house, closed the door, locked it, pulled the window curtain, and ate Brenda's potato salad in complete silence.

Friends, sometimes the only way to finish summer is to survive it.

Until next time, Cranky DJ

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