Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, spending this Labor Day 2024 thinking about Labor Days past and the summers that preceded them. I grew up in an area noted for summer tourism—the Sullivan County Borscht Belt in southeastern New York State. Labor Day marked the end of “the season” and although that meant tourist dollars were gone until the next year, it was also cause for locals to celebrate. Summers were crowded! Tourists could be demanding—the term “summer complaints” didn’t just sprint out of nowhere! For local kids to have a swimming hole to ourselves, for example, it had to be marked with a sign that said “Residents Only.” This was Revonah, and I took lessons at there like everyone else I knew.

For several generations, both sides of my family profited from the summer exodus of people from “the city” to “the mountains.” My paternal grandfather made souvenirs to sell to summer people. My mother’s family turned their farm into a summer boardinghouse. It was still in business in the 1950s and I can remember falling asleep in the downstairs bedroom with the window open to the porch and listening to boarders (actually roomers by then, since individual kitchens had been installed to allow for keeping kosher) exchange gossip in Yiddish.

farm pond used for boating and swimming at the farm/boardinghouse

There was also an apartment over the garage that was rented out every year to a Mr. and Mrs. Hershey. In my own house, until 1958,  my parents let the spare room (the one with its own balcony that I later claimed for my own) to a Mr. Lazar every summer. During the school year, it was sometimes rented to a teacher who also had the dubious honor of babysitting for me. We were far from the only family in the area who rented out a room, or converted their upstairs into an apartment.

Summers as a kid in the 1950s and early 1960s meant being outdoors most of the time, hanging out with friends, taking long bike rides, and inventing our own games. No one rode herd on us. No one worried about where, exactly, we were. Trips to the “custard stand” for soft-serve ice cream were a regular evening habit. So was walking downtown to window shop or go to the movies. I went to a lot of movies, since two theaters were open in the summer and it was nice and cool inside. Sometimes I went by myself and other times with a whole gang of other girls my age. I can remember staying to sit through Disney’s Sleeping Beauty two or three times in a row, even though the accompanying “short subject” featured snakes and I had to close my eyes for that part.

the second move theater, open only in the summer

Although, at sixteen, many of my classmates got jobs at local hotels or in businesses that catered to tourists, I was only marginally involved. My first job, if you don’t count selling personalized Christmas cards on commission (Mom did this first, then sent me out with the huge sample books from three different card companies), was as a long-distance operator using an old-fashioned “cord board” at the telephone company. There were lots of long-distance calls, but I wasn’t in direct contact with the folks who made them.

To be honest, I spent a whole lot of time during my teenage summers reading on our front porch or, after I claimed the “guest room,” on my little balcony. What can I say? I was always something of a nerd.

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new omnibus e-book editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.