We will soon celebrate the Labor Day weekend, the traditional end to our Maine Coast summer vacation season.

These days, we extend the tourist season until Oct. 10. This gives our local stores, inns and restaurants a few extra weeks for tourists seeking to buy their wares, rooms and tables.

Bully for them. After enduring the COVID lockdown, they need a chance to at least bank a few more credit card receipts.

Labor Day is also the traditional beginning of the biennial political silly season, the time when candidates, their backers and special interest fat cats open their wallets in a not-so-secret attempt to purchase your votes. For the record, it is a fiscal bonanza for our friends in TV land as this is when buckets of campaign gelt head their way.

Of course, if you were hiding in the closet for the last nine months, you might have missed out on an unusual event as some folks are still arguing over who won the 2022 presidential race. I know it is confusing to you. Me too.

For example, not long ago some Democrats advocated defunding the police. In recent weeks, some Republicans said we should defund the FBI. I guess which side you favor depends on whose ox is being gored.

One side says the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a legit political protest that got a bit out of hand. The other side claims it was a planned insurrection attempting to overthrow the Constitution. Political types have argued over this question for the last two years. The political surveys say the voters are paying attention.

Two weeks ago, the FBI knocked on the door of the former president's golf clubhouse to serve a search warrant signed by a federal judge. They alleged the former president had taken classified top secret documents from the White House. They wanted them back.

One side claims it was a terrible historic overreaction, claiming the former president may have just made a minor error, like not returning a library book on time. Surely, they argue, there was no need to involve the FBI. The other side, as usual, uses the event to vilify the former president.

Two-thirds of the political spectrum are screaming about the search, but no one knows the real story. Ironically, some leaders from both political parties have tried to avoid taking a stand. They duck the question because they have no way of knowing how this will play out, or how it might affect their chance of holding onto their political office.

So, dear readers, sit back and take a few moments to enjoy the last days of the 2022 season. Soon you will be hammered by a deluge of screaming political ads. Expect them to last until the political tide recedes sometime after the close of business on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Then it will be time to begin the 2024 presidential race.

But Labor Day is just another work day for our merchants. Most venues will stay open until Oct. 10, a national holiday celebrating the discovery of America. But for some, it has become fashionable to downplay Columbus's discovery as a bad event, the start of the European takeover of the Americas.

But he was not the first European and only sailor to visit our shores. He just made the most of his journey.

Most historians agree that the Vikings had been here for a long time, and so were Basque fishermen, but, being good fishermen, they kept their discoveries secret.

Did you even know a fisherman who would broadcast the location of his secret fishing hole?

One of my favorite early explorers was a guy named Giovanni Verrazano. You know the name. New York City named a bridge after him. In 1524, he talked the King of France into bankrolling his expedition to the “New World.” He sailed up the East Coast, including Maine, all the way to Newfoundland.

He reported to his backers that it was lovely, but he found no gold and riches. So, in 1528, they sent him to the Caribbean, where he went ashore on a beautiful island to greet the happy natives. They were not happy to see him, and they invited him to dinner, literally.

When Jacques Cartier sailed to Newfoundland in 1534, he discovered it was a great place to fish. Soon the word got out and, by 1560, at least 30 vessels left France bound for those shores. By 1596, there were reports of about 300 fishermen working there.

A few years later the Brits planted a colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River. They stayed for a while then sailed back home becoming Maine’s first for a while summer people.