Labor Day announces many things.
September 1, 2008 (Monday)
Today is Labor Day, celebrated in the United States as a day off work as summer draws to a close. It got its start in New York City in 1882, and was made a national holiday in 1894. It has since become a state holiday in all the states. Unlike other national holidays, it has no agenda other than a day off work for working people.
A significant meaning of the day for many people is the way it determines when the NFL football season begins. The first professional game after Labor Day each year marks the official beginning of the season. In the immortal words of Hank Williams, Jr., “Are you ready for some football?”
It’s a great time of year for those who love both football and baseball, as the MLB teams get ready for the World Series. Stir in the Olympics every four years, and avid sports fans live by Browning’s poetry line, “God’s in His heaven, and all’s right with the world!” You can almost hear them singing, “’Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la.”
This is also the peak time for hurricanes, and we are celebrating that distinction by anxiously watching the weather forecasts as Hurricane Gustav makes its way on shore. Are you as impressed as I am by the ever new technologies that make the predictions more accurate these days? Not so long ago, we were tracking storms on our own little maps, guessing where it might go next. Then more sophisticated methods kicked in, and we can have a better idea of what to expect. In 1900, in Galveston, and in 1919, in Corpus Christi, there was great loss of life because our forbearers had little warning of approaching storms. A friend in Rockport, Mrs. Bertha Harper, told me the the full moon was beautiful over the bay the night before the 1919 storm brought death and destruction. We are fortunate today to have the warnings, and the means of evacuation for those who require them.
There are those, however, who don’t stay in touch. I was in a grocery store Friday evening when I heard one of the employees ask a customer, “What do you think about that storm?” The customer, an elderly man on a cane, replied, “What storm?”