Rant #3,773: Bittersweet

Today is Labor Day, when we celebrate most of us--working Americans.

For some, Labor Day means the end of summer, although summer doesn't actually end for about three weeks.

My family and I had our Labor Day barbecue one day early on Sunday, and it went pretty well 

I am still learning how to cook on an electric grill, and it went fine, although my knish kind of stuck to the grill.

Everything else was great.

I have mixed feelings about the holiday.

Read what I wrote on Rant #2,996,  September 2, 2022, about Labor Day:

"For 24 Labor Days from 1996 to 2019, my Labor Day was almost always a work day, because my company had its biggest book of the year to get out, and well, normally the company didn’t know what a deadline meant during the other 11 monthly issues of the year, but when it came to this book—

We just had to get it out as close to deadline as possible, and so I worked just about every Labor Day during that span.

I had things to do just like everyone else did on Labor Day, so in a lot of those years, I would come into work at about 4 a.m. in the morning—or even earlier—get out what I could, and leave after a day’s work, rarely seeing my fellow workers when they came in later in the day.

It was completely ridiculous, didn’t have to be that way, but that is the way that my company wanted it.

I even remember one year, the powers that be literally checked to see if myself and two others were in that day, and did it from the comfort of their homes.

They literally thought that we were not going to do what we said we were going to do—be into work that day—and when we embarrassed them by actually being there, they were flummoxed.

Now, [several] years removed from that horror—the last book we got out was literally the final issue we released before the company folded—there is another personal wrinkle to Labor Day that I have to bear, and it goes far beyond whether I was in to work or not during those past years.

My father passed away on Labor Day—the holiday was on September 7 in 2020—so while this year’s holiday on September 1 is not right on that date, the holiday still reminds me that my father is physically gone, but certainly not forgotten.

And his passing on Labor Day that year gave us a message that he always believed in, that after your family, work comes first. He worked the grimy and deteriorating streets of New York City as a licensed medallion cab driver for more than 50 years, so if anyone knew what true work was, it was he, a guy who worked until he was in his 80s and had almost lost all his hearing.

My father knew exactly what Labor Day meant, and now the holiday reminds me that another year has passed that he is not physically with us.

Anyway, Labor Day marches on."

So, while i know that I will have something of a slow day today, my father will be on my mind, so it will be kind of a bittersweet celebration for my family and I.

Have a good holiday.