End of Summer...A Last Blast at Cherry Grove

Well, here we are, Labor Day and the last day of summer vacation for me and thousands of other teachers on Long Island.  As it is every year, this day is of course a sad one.  What seemed like so much time ahead of me back in June flew past in the blink of an eye and here I am again in September, counting the days until the next summer break.  C'est la vie, right?  I could have it a lot worse, I know.

Labor Day Sunday

As I've shared in this space before, Labor Day Sunday is a traditional day for me and my friends (and thousands of other people!) to spend the afternoon/evening on Fire Island.  Memorial Day, the 4th of July and Labor Day are the only three days of the summer when both my pals Rich and Bobby (Dita and Blanche) are sure to come with me, and on any given one of these days it could be the three of us and a whole bunch of others or just us three.  This year, yesterday, was the latter.

Whereas last year's Labor Day fest was filled with lots of friends and a great time (read back on it here, here and here), this year was a little more subdued since it was just us.  It was different, too!  For one thing, we never made it to Ice Palace, which is where we usually start off.  This was because they took advantage of the large Labor Day Weekend crowds and decided to charge a cover beginning at 6:30 p.m., ten minutes before the ferry pulled in.  Hmmm...can anybody say 'greedy' or 'ripoff?'

Anyway, so that left us at Cherry's, which is more popular with the lesbians early on at night.  Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against lesbians, but Cherry's was so full of them last night and it was pretty annoying because many of them were young, very drunk,, and very raucous.  We were probably outnumbered about 15-1 by them...that is until around 10ish when the dudes started showing up.

Anyway, the three of us made our own fun anyway, dancing, chatting and making fun of our fellow patrons, including a drunken, middle aged woman that Dita dubbed 'Snooki's grandmother,' lol.  At one point, there was this little, older woman who I'd seen talking to Blanchie on the side of the dance floor while I was dancing.  Blanche tends to chat with strangers on occasion, so I didn't think much of it until I stopped dancing and walked over to them.

"Did you see that woman?" He asked me.  How could I not?  They were chatting right in front of me.

"Well, she just walked right up to me and poked me in the stomach." (Um, that's always a no-no!) "I grabbed her finger and told her that's not very nice.  I held on to her finger (as he was telling me this, he was holding mine to demonstrate) until she apologized."  Blanche was pissed!  It then got weirder...

While that had been going on, my friend Anthony, who had been dancing nearby, put his fingers over the woman's phone, blocking her view of the screen just to tease her a bit.  Well, next thing you knew, she was all over Anthony and his dancing partner...sista was drunk as a skunk!  As Blanche, Dita and I stood there watching in amusement, all of a sudden she pulled off her spikey blonde wig to reveal a completely bald head!  I couldn't help but smile as I watched all of this, which got her attention.  Next thing you knew she was all over me and it took me a song or two before I could pull of an escape while her back was turned.

Any-who, the rest of the night was fun, more dancing, more drinking...a nice capper to a nice summer!  For the first time in a long time, I'm actually a little sad about the season ending.  I've had a lot of good times this year and I made some nice new friends.  It's going to be a long nine months!

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