Last call to donate to this year’s Labor Day Parade! Generous donations have brought the parade committee SO close to their goal that just another $3,000 will put them in the comfort zone. If you and your family enjoys the parade as much as I do and haven’t yet donated, please consider sending a check to the Labor Day Parade Fund c/o Newtown Savings Bank, 39 Main Street. Any amount is appreciated, so don’t be shy. If you have already made a donation to support the parade, thank you.

The parade is not only the opportunity to visit with friends and neighbors and watch some fancy bands, but the chance to lend a helping hand, too. This year there is some worthy fundraising interspersed among the blasting muskets and prancing ponies on Main Street.

For instance, I’m doing a little extra grocery shopping before Monday’s parade and bringing it along when I stake out my spot on the parade route that morning, and I’m hoping that the many others in town will do the same. The nonperishable items will be collected during the parade by Breanne Lubinsky, who has begun an ambitious project, which we first heard about last week: The Senior Girl Scout is hoping to collect at least 1,000 cans or boxes of food for FAITH Food Pantry during the parade. Breanne, her parents, and a number of friends will have two full-size pickup trucks in the parade and they will be collecting donations for the food pantry. Put your donation right into a plastic shopping bag, which will make it easier for the volunteers to collect everything along the parade route and will also fulfill another request from the food pantry. Believe it or not, they’re low on bags. Let’s make this a food drive for the books.

Only 100 copies of the numbered, collectible Newtownopoly game remain out of the original 1,000 copies that went on sale in 2006. The Monopoly-like game is a big fundraiser for the Newtown High School Orchestra and has helped pay for numerous scholarships for high school students, a trip to Italy in 2006, two trips into New York City to visit the Philharmonic Orchestra, additional musical festivals, and private lessons. Members of the orchestra will be — you guessed it — marching in the Labor Day Parade with copies for sale. Even if you already own a copy, remember that they make a great gift for newcomers to our town or as a fond reminder of Newtown for those who have moved away. If you’re lucky, maybe Newtownopoly artist and local muralist David Merrill will be in the crowd, as he has been the past three years, and willing to sign your Newtownopoly.

Also on Monday watch for Mary Antey and Lorraine VanderWende, who will be set up in front of C.H. Booth Library for the first sales of the 2008 Newtown Woman’s Club Christmas Ornament. This year’s pewter ornament features Newtown Middle School, and the club has been able to keep the price of the ornament at $10. Past ornaments and the club’s 40th anniversary cookbook will also be available for purchase, and they are also $10 each.

The Relay For Life continues to Celebrate Our Survivors during this year’s Labor Day Parade. Survivors and supporters are invited to join the team, lining up on Currituck Road by Parmalee Hill Road, Monday morning at 9. As many survivors as would like are welcome to ride the float. Walkers who want to join in can arrive at 9:30 — don’t forget to wear your Relay For Life shirt. If you are planning to join in to Celebrate Our Survivors, send an e-mail to relayforlifeofnewtown@gmail.com to confirm.

Hang in there: I’m almost done with my pre-parade prattle. Moms and dads who have ever had a little one whisper in their ear about halfway through the parade that the juice and lemonade is imminently about to exit will appreciate something new on parade day. The parade committee has contracted to have several porta-potties set up at various convenient locations to provide relief for big and little folks who may have overestimated how much they can drink and how long the Labor Day Parade lasts.

Turning green is not as bad as it sounds. While I am keeping my distance from the line of march of the Labor Day Parade procession this year (I caught my tail in a float last year) I certainly encourage everyone on two legs to find a spot along Main Street on Monday. And stay alert for the sign up sheets that will be circulating via the Clean Energy Task Force members and volunteers. Get your house onto the renewable energy list and purchase clean power off the grid. With enough households signed on the town gets a solar panel, and hopefully we can use it to warm my spot beneath the windowsill here at The Bee.

And this will be my last word on the parade, I promise: If you have coffee, snacks, or anything else that creates trash while watching the parade on Monday, please remember to take everything with you when you leave. It must be hard enough for all of the homeowners and businesses along Main Street to host strangers sitting on the edge of their lawns for hours every Labor Day, but have you ever driven through town in the few hours after the parade? The amount of garbage left along the sides of the road is an embarrassment. Don’t make the folks who live along the parade route pick up after the thousands of people who watch the parade. When you pick up your folding chairs and blankets, and take the kids by the hand after the final float goes by, be sure to take one last look around to make sure that you and your neighbors, as one group is fond of saying, “Leave No Trace Behind.”

I was taking my usual postbreakfast catnap on Wednesday when an unusual amount of traffic going past disturbed my slumber. I opened one eye to peer out the window and realized that it was that time of year again: the start of school. Buses rumbled over the streets picking up bleary-eyed kids and transporting them to the schools, and plenty of private vehicles chauffeuring schoolchildren from home to school joined them. It’s amazing how much traffic is suddenly generated in town. I’m staying inside these days, and recommending my other furry friends steer clear of the roads, too.

Dan Cruson stopped by The Bee late last week to say that he is in agreement with resident Jonathan Aragones, who recently questioned the identification in an old photo of a building up at Fairfield Hills as Shelton House. Mr Aragones grew up at Fairfield Hills, where his father was a doctor, and delivered newspapers to residents at Norwalk Hall. And that is the building, said Mr Aragones, in the 1934 photograph. “You can’t take the same picture today because the white staff houses weren’t built until the 1950s. Shelton has three cupolas while Norwalk has two chimneys, just like the 1934 photo. The half arched attic windows on either side of the chimney on Norwalk Hall are seen in the 1934 photo with the left window open, today that same window is open (Shelton House has full arch attic windows).” The photo is from Mr Cruson’s Newtown book and has been published in the Way We Were column. Originally, Mr Cruson believed that the photo depicted Shelton House before the two Y-shaped wings were added, “But on closer inspection, now that I have had the time,” said Dan, “I agree that the building in the photograph is Norwalk House, not Shelton House.” He’ll be chatting with Mr Aragones as soon as he gets his computer back up and running he said, because it’s always good to get new historical insight.

As soon as the school year begins, I start thinking about one of my favorite fall activities, apple picking. Lyman’s Orchard in Middlefield, Blue Jay Orchards in Bethel, Silverman’s Farm in Easton, and Beardsley’s Orchard in Shelton are just a few of the orchards that are open or will be opening within the next couple of weeks for those early apples. I can just about taste the sweet juiciness of a newly picked apple already.

I’m off to dream of marching bands and readin’, ’ritin’, and ’rithmetic, but I hope you don’t get too dreamy next week to …. Read me again.