Labor Day, 2024

 Oh, we'll still have some hot days - scorchers, even. 

And it's still a bit lightish in the evenings. 

But there's no doubt about it, summer's pretty much over. And even if it's been decades upon decades since you went back to school with your new shoes and pencil box, and even though these days a lot of schools start up before Labor Day, there's something about this holiday that makes you think of that something's ending and something's beginning. (Duh statement, if ever.)

The big thing I'll miss is the daylight in the evening. The big thing I'm looking forward to is that eventual die out of the scorchers. That and the availability of early Macs. (McIntoshes are much my favorite apple.)

But it's Labor Day, so I need to give a shout out to the men and women who built this country by working hard. In a world where the most desired professions include influencer and private equity investor, let's hear it for those who actually make things in factories or in their craft rooms, so they can sell it on Etsy. Let's hear it for

those who swing a hammer, snake out plugged drains, paint the walls and ceilings. Let's hear it for those who save lives, fight fires, and arrest bad guys (the good guys among them, anyway). Let's hear if for those changing the diapers of the bedridden. Those who swab the floors and clean the toilets. Let's hear it for those who wait tables and tend bars, who run the checkout counters and stock the shelves, who deliver all those goods to our front doors. Let's hear it for the teachers whose lives get more difficult by the moment. Let's hear it for those who work in social services - hard work taking care of those on the fringes of society - and do so with compassion, and for short money. (I see them all the time at St. Francis House, the shelter where I volunteer.)

Let's hear it for all the blue collar, pink collar, and white collar workers whose jobs may be in jeopardy if we let AI take all the good jobs without figuring out what people are going to do when some big buck, big brain, small heart a-hole decides that they can get all the jobs done with robots and ChatGPT. 

Hate to end on a downish note, so let's leave it with Happy Labor Day!