Labor Day told us that summer must be over, so I put away the white shoes, purse and hats. The weather said fall was drawing nigh. In six weeks I will have to move plants into the porch and some to inside the house. On the plus side, I can wear turtlenecks.
Memorial Day seems not so long ago, when plants thanked me for moving them outside. They do flourish there in outdoor air — not “fresh” air because of car exhaust and other pollutants — and will return inside bigger and leafier.
My parents married on Memorial Day weekend in 1926, over in Canada. The self-employed take little time off, and Porter was no exception. Many years later I overheard him telling a classmate of mine, “Yes, it was a second time for me. I’d been happily divorced for nine months and the next thing I knew, I was married again.” That was Porter, the joker.
One of Ina’s teachers at Ricker Classical Institute wanted to get her a scholarship at Colby College, but her father said no to that. After she graduated at 17 in 1917, she tried teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in Amity, and quit after only a week. Porter knew her from when she substituted for her older sister once, cleaning for his first wife; he also took Ina’s graduation photos. One of his crew working in the studio was a friend of hers and when the friend quit, Ina took her place.
Ina’s father, who had moved the family by then from Hodgdon to Carmel, had never met Porter, and was not about to accept a divorced man 15 years her senior. Of course, he had not accepted her three sisters’ husbands, either. Eventually Grammy, who corresponded with Ina, suggested to him that he should see what Porter had built, including a three-room playhouse for my sixth birthday.
Grampy’s job took him up through Aroostook at least as far as Fort Fairfield, and his first overnight visit at our cottage would be the first of many times he stopped.
This year, Labor Day would have been just one more day, not memorable, but I had a plan. There would be two events: on Saturday, my first movie in about seven years, and the next day, a special shopping trip to Sears in a mall about 10 miles away. I very much enjoyed “The Big Sick,” a Pakistani film, and found a much-needed mattress at Sears.
On Labor Day I rested up from all that excitement and looked forward to Sears’’ delivery the next Saturday — and to telling everyone about my memorable weekend.
Byrna Porter Weir was born and grew up in Houlton, where her parents were portrait photographers. She now lives in Rochester, N.Y.
