Honor Labor

Labor day is the beginning of the end: So long backyard ques and your tinkling ice cubed glasses. Aloha zillions of sunblock 30 tubes and expanding bathing suits (back to the food table). Good riddance swamp coolers and long sweaty nights. See ya next year nuclear families crisscrossing the continent. Aideu backyard tomatoes dying on the vine. Adios daylight savings and long evening walks. Catch you later alligators...kids filtering back (broomed out the door! ) to education and their own private shenanigans...a national holiday. Labor Day. Signaling the passage from summer to fall. Familiar and fuzzy tabloid? Not so fast. Knowledge is power, my friend. Put this in your pipe and smoke it: The first Monday in September. A celebration conceived by the Central Labor Union of New York (smarta new yawkers) in 1882 to recognize the contributions of the American workers. Ironically, the first Labor day was on a Tuesday. In 1887 Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York created a bill which officially sanctioned Labor Day as a holiday. And by 1894 Congress passed legislation declaring the first Monday in September a legal holiday. Traditionally a day laden with speeches and parades celebrating workers and their families. Today a more refined version circulates: officials and the usual talking heads quoted in the news media or you tubed. Sedate after maybe tossing back a couple and thinking about what to pack the kids for lunch tomorrow, or sitting barefoot in a lawn chair soaking up those last lingering summer rays while waiting for the leaves to turn and the NFL season to open, reflect upon the litany of jobs you've ever held, ranking them from worst to first through youth towards retirement. And honor your own labor. And those that came before you.