Yesterday was Labor Day and I was thinking about how we celebrated holidays when I was growing up. On Memorial Day, my mom, brothers and I went to the parade in Hingham with Grandma and Grandpa Brasser while my dad got up really early to go fishing. It was a day off work for him and he got up early to go fishing? I don’t get that. Then all my aunts, uncles and cousins gathered together at my Grandma and Grandpa Van Wyk’s house. The 4th of July we had a picnic at one of the little lakes in the area with my Aunt Edie and Uncle Bill and all their kids.
On Labor Day we always got together with the Bimmel family. Every other year, the Bimmel’s would come to our house for lunch or we would go to theirs and then we would all head for the Sheboygan County Fair that was, and still is, held on Labor Day weekend. The fair was a blast. I had 4-H things that I had made to exhibit and get judged. I got some blue ribbons I think. But the fair to me was going on rides, looking at the animals, and especially the horses, watching Brenda show her horse and just running around. After our lunch with the Bimmel’s, Gary, who was my age, and I would get to the fair and we had such fun. It was just a fun place to me and I looked forward to it every year. The Iowa State Fair is a big deal here, but I don’t enjoy going to it. I think the Sheboygan County Fair was more about who was there than what was there.
Of course a lot of time has passed. Helen Bimmel passed away a few years ago, but my mom and dad and Howard Bimmel and a friend of his still get together on Labor Day. They don’t go to the fair now, that was something Helen was a part of, but they find something to do together. I still see Gary when I visit Sheboygan Falls. He’s a grandfather now. I went back to the fair a few years ago and it wasn’t the same. It could have been a fair anywhere. The people that we ran around with, who we met at the fair, that’s what made it fun. Labor Day weekend will always fill me with memories and give me a smile.
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