JULIE LANE PHOTO
One of the things the British get right is leaving the long weekends that begin and end summer without names weighed down with significance.
Over there they’re called “bank holidays,” a generic term simply meaning a long weekend with Monday off.
We insist on calling the summer kickoff Memorial Day, which has recovered some of its original meaning because of mounting numbers of dead Americans some of us remember for their service in the misguided wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But Labor Day lost its original meaning long ago. (more…)