Oh my word. Will August never end? February is the shortest month and August is by far the longest, a full 17 days longer than any other. At least it feels that way.
Nothing happens in August. The month has no holidays, since there’s nothing to celebrate. The business world grinds to a halt amid last-chance beach vacations and general summertime torpor. Emails go unanswered. Meetings are canceled for lack of attendees. Those who do make it into the office arrive late and duck out early, since no one’s around to notice.
It’s not just in offices, either. Civic groups and charitable organizations avoid staging events during this cruelest of months, knowing attendance will be poor. Even the world of barbecue largely comes to a standstill.
For those of us who visit barbecue joints professionally, August can be tricky. Once July 4 has passed and the dog days have descended, plenty of mom-and-pop operations close for an entire week or more to let Mom and Pop take a vacation. It’s not just family-run spots, either. Each year in August, the acclaimed Franklin Barbecue in Austin shuts down for a full ten days, while many others take similar “smoke breaks.”
You’re unlikely to find sustenance at a backyard barbecue, either. Your friends with younger children are busy roaming store aisles, checking off lists of school supplies and securing lunch-box staples. Those a bit older are packing trunks and preparing to move students back into dorms or apartments. No one has time for grilling burgers, much less slow-cooking pork shoulders.
This time each year I find myself in the grips of the August malaise, becalmed in the horse latitudes with nary a whiff of hickory smoke in the air. Partly it is because of the heat, which I complained about more than enough in last month’s column. Did I mention the humidity, though?
Here on the South Carolina coast the temperature consistently hovers just below triple digits, sustained by downpours that roll through each day between 3 and 7 p.m., washing out prime barbecue hours. Each day I find myself checking the calendar, wondering, “How much longer till Labor Day?”
Ah, Labor Day: the semi-official end of summer, when we can hang up our swimsuits and move on with the rest of our lives. For those with school-age children, the end of summer brings a return to structure and daily routine. In the white-collar world, the regular rhythm of workdays and weekends resumes. Clients start returning calls. The replies trickle in for emails sent long ago.
It’s funny how the holiday has evolved over the years. Originally, Labor Day was explicitly about labor – organized labor, that is. The first celebrations in the 1880s were staged by unions to extol the strength and esprit de corps of workers. Unionized mills and factories closed to give staff a day of rest and they celebrated the occasion with parades and outdoor barbecues. (Yes, barbecue has been part of the holiday since the very beginning.)
Before long, dozens of states had recognized the Labor Day holiday and, in 1894, Congress made it a federal one. In subsequent decades, as more non-union workers had the day off, the parades and radical trappings fell by the wayside. By World War Two, Labor Day had lost its connection to unionism and become a long weekend of relaxation, while the barbecues had shifted from outdoor pits to backyard grills and restaurants.
In the 1950s and 1960s, newspapers brimmed with ads for grills and meat in the run-up to Labor Day. These days, our social media feeds are crammed with round-ups offering “23 Crowd-Pleasing Labor Day Recipes for the Ultimate Summer Send-Off” and the like.
For those of us who visit barbecue joints professionally, August can be tricky
This Labor Day weekend, you certainly won’t see any “Closed for Vacation” signs on the doors of barbecue joints. Owners fire up extra pits and ramp up staffing, preparing for the flood of orders on one of their busiest weekends of the year.
These days, the timing of Labor Day seems a bit out of whack. For many, instead of a much-needed respite after a long stretch of work, the holiday is more of a “back to labor day” – one last summer hurrah before old routines resume.
As I’m writing this, I’ve started thinking of all the friends we haven’t seen in weeks, if not months, what with all the hubbub and summer travel. Perhaps we should invite them over for a Labor Day barbecue?
Contemplating it, I can feel a breeze beginning to stir and the sails slowly filling. I envision thick slabs of spare ribs, neatly trimmed, dry-brined with salt and ready for the pit. There will definitely be coleslaw – you have to have slaw with ribs. Maybe a tub of potato salad, too, with a dash of mustard to give it a pale yellow hue.
You know, I’m kind of looking forward to Labor Day now. And to getting back to work.
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