Labor Day

It's always dead on a blog on Sundays, and double that if it's a holiday. So most likely, I write today simply to hear myself think, but here it goes.

It's a great holiday, too, Labor Day. It celebrates those of us who labor, and we might work the holiday, or we might not, as contrary as that seems. It was supposed to be an extra day off, but then fast food was invented, and all bets were off. After all, laborers had to have a place to eat on their day off, didn't they?

So Labor Day acquires less meaning over time, and more an excuse not to wear white shoes. Did you know Labor Day also marks the social end of summer, and we aren't supposed to wear white shoes after that day? That's a hold over from the Victorian era, when tennis shoes hadn't hit it big. Actually, they didn't exist. Not made of canvas, that is.

It was simply a day, after the harvest was in, that workers used to eat a lot. Now we have Thanksgiving for that. That's because now we have canned food. No sane Pilgrim would have held off eating the harvest until November. The fruits and vegetables of summer wouldn't have been fresh anymore. "Gather ye rosebuds/while ye may"* really meant something in the days before shipping from California and Mexico came into fashion and you couldn't get whatever it was, year round.

 So, as always, there are those who labor with their hands, and those who live off that labor. It's really a celebration of Farmer Day, as I see it. Or Weaver and Seamstress Day. It's a celebration of those who fulfill our basic necessities, food on the table and the clothes on our backs. But it has come to mean those who don't have some kind of retirement package, or golden parachute, don't you think?

*Robert Herrick