Happy Labor Day!
[NOTE: This is a slightly edited version of a previous post.]
Labor Day is the bookend standing at the opposite end of summer from its holiday beginning, Memorial Day.
July Fourth is summer’s early peak, with the promise of long light-filled days ahead. But Labor Day is summer’s last gasp, the moment I dreaded as a child because it marked the end of vacation and the start of the school year. Spiffy new clothes, a shiny bookbag, freshly sharpened pencils, and the promise of the beautiful autumn leaves’ arrival were nice. But they couldn’t make up for the fact that a new school year was beginning. Where oh where had the summer gone?
And it goes even more quickly these days. But let’s be happy about the fact that we don’t have to worry about the start of school anymore—except, perhaps, for the teachers among us.
Here’s wishing you all a Happy Labor Day, despite the difficult times. Barbecues, picnics, the beach, just hanging out in your yard, whatever you desire and whatever you decide. And for the historically-minded among you, here’s some information on the origins of the holiday.
Labor Day has happily, like many holidays, lost it’s original meaning for celebration.
Unions. Socialism. Marxism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8EMx7Y16Vo
After Labor Day, gentlemen should not wear white pants, straw hats, or seersucker suits. It’s the law.
The real unions, craft unions, have faded away. Now what we have are government employee unions that even Franklin Roosevelt opposed.
As a member of a real, craft union, Carpenter’s Local 1289, I wish you all a great labor day!
I just made a big donation (for me) to Neo. I appreciate her as the very most informed, thoughtful and articulately forceful pundit we have. I did this after reading her Sept 4 posting “What’s next for our new partners in peace, the Taliban?”
I live in Florida. The two hottest months are August and September. For me, it marks the peak of the hot season.
Alan F:
A very big thank you!
tcrosse:
No white shoes or patent leather for women. I grew up when that was still The Rule.
A bittersweet holiday for sure. As a kid it’s the official last weekend before school starts, in Michigan anyway. I’ve enjoyed it most as a working adult…the long weekend and shortened work week. But it still signals in me the end of summer, beginning of autumn and the inevitable slide into the clouds and darkness of winter.
I think I’ll head to sunny southern Florida.
Just for tcrosse: A short video about the Straw Hat Riot of 1922, when packs of boys terrorized men wearing straw hats on the streets of New York after the official season for “boaters” had ended. The boys even went so far as to snatch straw hats off the heads of officers of the law.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lDwghpwxyg&ab_channel=The1920sChannel
As you’ll see at the end of the video, we can thank Calvin Coolidge for Making Straw Hats Fashionable Again.
I guess im a fashion rebel. I wear a work straw hat just about any time its above 40 F.
Although fall is still my favorite season, it has lost a bit of its luster as I get older. Alas. But I can still ski, and I look forward to that. Even mud season has its charms, if you look hard enough. And best wishes to all the laborers our country is blessed to have.
My Dad worked in Lower Manhattan, and every day took the Barclay St ferry across the Hudson to Hoboken to get the train home. It was a tradition that on the last trip before Labor Day the men would toss their straw hats into the drink. My Dad was too frugal to do so.
In honor of labor day, I can recommend reading,
“Shakedown Socialism: Unions, Pitchforks, Collective Greed, The Fallacy of Economic Equality, and other Optical Illusions of “Redistributive Justice”
by Oleg Atbashian
Oleg was a graphics designer under the old Soviet system and thus part of the propaganda machine. As the title suggests, there are a variety of topics. But by my reading, the big topic of the book is the folly of committed labor union people promoting a communist gov.
He speaks of those who imagined that the labor leaders would be in the catbird seat, but in reality the political leaders had no time or care for their issues. And the reason was that once absolute power is obtained, the power of unions becomes worthless.
It’s a living in moderation, and life where we want quality of life. Here’s to products and services.
That said, on reflection of its dual-use sense, to all the past, present, and prospective mothers, and the fathers who stand with them, thank you.
Labor day became a federal holiday in 1887, in concession to workers and the burgeoning union movement. The US Dept. of Labor was not created til 1913.Thanks, Woodrow.
Labor unions have almost always been led by Marxists or by Mafia types (see Jimmy Hoffa, whose son heads up that same union now). See the International Workers of the World (IWW).
Industrial unions have essentially disappeared, as have their employers.
But we have public sector unions, like ATF, which, along with trial lawyers are the two greatest contributors to the DNC in its march to make us totally, not just partially, socialist, under its dominion forever.
The point of unions is to organize against employers, but who employs the public sector unions? We taxpayers.
We can thank JFK for green-lighting the concept.
I despise Labor Day, given its history and results.
Alan F: thanks for leading by example. I just did the same. A very modest sum that can’t begin to match the value I enjoy from Neo’s site: both her intelligent, careful and honest writing on a wonderful variety of topics, and the spirited, funny and informative comments of her readers. Long may she and her blog continue to shine. Floreat!
Labor unions have almost always been led by Marxists or by Mafia types (see Jimmy Hoffa, whose son heads up that same union now). See the International Workers of the World (IWW). — Cicero
I always thought it was most curious that Saul Alinsky worked under Frank Nitti (Francesco Raffaele Nitto) in his younger days. Then I saw a Hollywoodized biography (Frank Nitti: The Enforcer, 1988) of Nitti which portrayed him as being the key mob boss who, late in his crime career, moved the mob towards pseudo-legitimacy by infiltrating some of the union’s leadership.
I posted some Labor Day thoughts…on the future of America’s ability to maintain a high standard of living for the majority of the people…here:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/66613.html
For those Up North in Michigan Labor Day ends a weekend of work–closing down the summer places.
Shuttering windows, putting up lawn furniture, storing boats, taking lifts and docks out of the lake–real live physical labor, with neighbors aiding neighbors.
And this year, summer is definitely over.
AesopSpouse retired on Friday, so we couldn’t use Labor Day as a holiday from work any longer!
We went to help one of our sons labor on his day-off projects instead.