For over forty years, Labor Day has been the annual block party for our street.  Lots of good food, usually based on the produce from our gardens.

Today I enjoyed a new treat — heads of romaine cut in to big slabs, roasted on the spot, and spread with chunks of goat cheese, mayo and herbs.  Amazing. Reggie was our head chef.

Lots of other good things were shared.

Some neighbors I see every day.  Others, only on this day.

New neighbors this year are Steve and Rachel Thorsett.  Steve is the new president of Willamette University.  Rachel just resigned her physics professorship at UC Santa Cruz to join him.  (I’m not sure why that kid in the background entertained himself by peeling the bark off my birch trees but the freshly-revealed white trunks are very beautiful.)

And I wondered why I hadn’t bumped into Curtis recently on his twice-a-day walks with his big red chow.  I asked him what he had done to himself.  He allowed as how he has been suffering from a bad bout of male-pattern stupidity.  He thinks there’s a lot of that going around the neighborhood right now.