Editor’s note: The Borough of Closter Labor Day festivities were postponed until Saturday, Sept. 7 due to rain
CLOSTER, N.J.—As summer winds down and the Labor Day weekend approaches, former and current Closterites can count on the traditional events that have marked the season’s conclusion for six decades. The late Coach George Potterton organized a town-wide gathering on Labor Day in 1960 that has expanded to a three-day celebration over the years. But not too much else has changed in this event where participants can count on field games, barbecue, concerts, magic shows and tables loaded with trophies, all followed by a fireworks display that reminds kids it’s time to head back to school.
Recreation Director Jim Oettinger explained that keeping the schedule and events the same each year is in honor of Coach Potterton who got it right from the beginning. “This allows older residents to go back in time to when they were young and participating in the events at Memorial Field. They are now witnessing their children and grandchildren take part years later. Closter is very lucky to have had such a great person head up the Closter Recreation programs for 40 years. We miss Coach Potterton, especially around Labor Day, with all the great memories.”
Oettinger has preserved an archive of photographs from long-ago Labor Day festivities. When current and former Closterites were asked to reminisce about their own Labor Day memories on Facebook’s “Are You from Closter???” page, just one photo set off a flood of recollections. Before the advent of bouncy houses and zip lines, there was the portable truck-driven “Kiddie Whip” and the “Rock & Roll” cage that hurtled kids up and down as they held on to a thin safety bar. Marie-Therese Miller wrote, “I remember the afternoons of races and tug-of-war fun and the magical fireworks at night with the promise of autumn chill in the air.” Ellen O’Connor recollected, “It was the kickoff of the new school year. Many of the kids who were gone for the summer were able to meet up before school started. Kids today wouldn’t be able to understand this. Unless you were a letter writer you really didn’t communicate with hometown friends.”
Some of the beloved activities might not be considered politically or environmentally correct these days such as Lily Ritner’s memory that, “We filled out postcards and attached them to helium filled balloons. The card asked the finder to mail the postcard back acknowledging where the postcard was found. The person whose postcard made it farthest was awarded a prize. My brother Joey won one year when his balloon made it to New England.”
Karen Levit Kerrigan recalled that “We loved playing in the foam the fire truck would pump onto the field and then they threw coins in there from the ladder above. Great memories!”
“I was always surprised after I moved away,” wrote former resident Bunny Woodward Coletti, “that other places did not do the Labor Day celebration that Closter did. Weren’t we lucky!”
All-in-all, Closter’s Labor Day celebration has withstood the test of time and continues to represent the mutual ties among its diverse and ever-changing community.
