Labor Day in the Knoxville area is marked with Boomsday. It is a big party on the river with food, music, capped off with a grand fireworks display and usually with a UT football weekend. My family and I made the treck to Boomsday along with 300,000+ other folks. It was a crowd and topped off a wonderful weekend with the UT Vols ranked at 23 beating 9th ranked Cal.

Well Labor Day has come and gone, marking the end of summer and when I was growing up the beginning of school. Well schools in this area now open in August. I remember as a kid thinking, "oh man" it's Labor Day and school starts this week. Where did the summer go.

This is a geat time of the year. It marks a new beginning with schools, and football, and the seasons of the year. Here there is already a change in the air, the temperature is down a little as well as the humidity. Growing up in Tennessee and living all over the southeast, with 15 years in Florida I really enjoy the fall in the mountains of east Tennessee. The crisp air gives you energy to get out of the house and take on some of the projects that you thought about during the dog days of summer, while you were inside with air conditioned comfort. I am now looking for colors to paint the trim on the house. I am looking at doing something more with the yard than just cutting and trimming.

Being in the ministry, it was also the beginning of a new church year. Time to look at the accomplishments of last year and make adjustments. Time to enlist new leadership for the organizations of the church, a beginning again. This brought to mind a saying that has given me courage to start new projects and begin again old projects that didn't get off the ground. "Beginning is half done." The meaning may or may not be obvious to you, but what it means that just getting started is half the battle of getting a project done. "I'm fixin' to get started" on the projects,I am going to get the paint and get to painting.

Chas