Labor Day 2018

Happy Labor Day                         internet image

Work is a blessing.

If you don't agree, ask someone looking for a job.

Work is the effort we bring to jobs around the house, or as a volunteer.

Along the line, jobs are defined by who the work.  White collar, blue collar, and pink collar - the worker may be different, but the jobs are all important.

I guess most think about this holiday as featuring the assembly line worker or someone in a blazing steel factory.  Maybe it's a farmer working day in - day out in any weather.

There are many jobs I can't do.  It might be an issue of aptitude or strength.  On the other hand, there are roles I play which wouldn't match their interest or skill-set of others.

Today it is good to recognize, honor, and salute the folks doing hard work without measuring the amount of sweat spilled in the process.

Nurses and aides in a variety of health care situations do incredibly difficult tasks with love and compassion for those in their care.

Not long after Labor Day became a national holiday, President Theodore Roosevelt had this to say about work in a 1910 speech at the New York State Fair:

It can not be too often repeated that in this country, in the long run, we all of us tend to go up or go down together. If the average of well-being is high, it means that the average wage-worker, the average farmer, and the average business man are all alike well off. If the average shrinks, there is not one of these classes which will not feel the shrinkage…

It is all-essential to the continuance of our healthy national life that we should recognize this community of interest among our people. The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, 

While the chasm is wider than ever between Chief Executives and workers on the front line; the President's words ring true.

I think that is why we should respect different jobs and those performing in those roles.

America's great melting pot is fueled in great measure by work.  Jobs can bring us together; provide income for our families; and be our economic engine.

Instead of inciting class warfare and promoting what makes us different; we are better served finding areas we have in common; and the values on which we all agree.

That would make this Labor Day truly special.