I’m going to go out on a limb here and say September probably isn’t the best month to be shutting down the federal government.

It sure was a nice Labor Day break while it lasted.

When then-Halifax County Senior High School opened in 1979, the massive new building was a source of genuine community pride — I know, I was a member of the first graduating class in the spring of the following year.

Today’s edition of The Mecklenburg Sun is being mass-mailed to 20,000 area homes with the kickoff of our annual subscription drive, and if you choose to sign up for a year of The Sun, you’ll get loads of good stuff over the next 52 weeks — all for only $14 ($28 a year for out-of-area subscribers).

This time a year ago, I devoted this space to the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville and the shocking sight of angry young white men going full Nazi and Kluxer on the university grounds where my son is enrolled as a third-year college student.