Our marvelous neighbors can pull a party together in 18 hours. John and I texted six households, and four were available to celebrate Labor Day. The photos show the crowd from each end of our porch.

Since my posts have become my memory, I’ll list the people. Deb, Joyce, Jeff, John, Logan, Mark, Bob, Dawn, Shawn. Deb and Mark are college friends of Shawn and Bob, visiting for the day. Mark was too far away for me to hear him, but I enjoyed hearing about Deb’s background. Her dad was in the service, and she lived in 18 different places before she was 18 years old. All the states were on the east coast. The state she enjoyed the most was South Carolina.

When Joyce asked what she should bring, I said our impromptu gatherings should be run like a come-as-you-are party. Instead of coming to a party dressed as you are at that moment, you should bring food that is already in your house. She immediately said she would break that rule, because she has very little that is extra. She keeps mostly foods that she eats on a regular basis. I might envy that. We could feed a small army for a day or so by pulling things from the freezer and the pantry.

For the foodies: Our table had hot dogs, hamburgers, buns, condiments, salsa dip, chips, baked beans, potato salad, warm blueberry muffins, cantaloupe, and TWO pans of warm Brownies. I told Joyce that Brownies were always welcome. It turned out that two kinds of Brownies were doubly welcome. The ones that Joyce and Shawn prepared were different, so of course everyone had to eat both. Indulgence at its best! A year or so ago our pot luck non-planning resulted in a different set of Brownie doubles, ones made by Holly and me. It’s safe to say that Brownies are very popular in the US.

Did you celebrate Labor Day?