There was a time when Labor Day meant one last trip to the lake, one last picnic, one last round of golf—and one last family vacation before summer slipped away.
In this Chesterton Radio Deep Dive, we return to our classic Labor Day countdown and the wonderfully ordinary world preserved inside it: The Great Gildersleeve heading for Grass Lake, Fibber McGee & Molly at a trailer camp, Burns & Allen planning a summer vacation, Jack Benny taking the gang away, The Bickersons discovering that marriage doesn’t take a holiday, and even The Mysterious Traveler and Inner Sanctum finding something darker in the idea of getting away.
Along the way, there’s Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn, a glimpse of Labor Day in 1941, and a larger question:
Whatever happened to the old-fashioned American summer vacation?
These broadcasts accidentally preserved something precious—the crowded car, the lake cottage, the roadside stop, the family argument, the anticipation of going somewhere and the melancholy of coming home.
The ordinary holiday became history.
So pack the picnic basket, load the car, and join us for one last weekend of summer.
What old radio program would you take along?
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