Our Labor Day last Monday

 

Last weekend was our Labor Day weekend in the US. This Sepia Saturday photo shows a lot of men and maybe one woman with her head turned away, in line to get on a bus.  I don't think I have any bus photos...oh wait, maybe one horse drawn one...ok, off I go to see what comes up via my cursor and a click or two!

London, Piccadilly, Eros, 1895 (I must assume the statue has something to do with a Greek god of love perhaps called Cupid in modern times) I found this photo on FB, where it was posted without any recognition of the Francis Frith Collection (after enlarging a lot I could read at the bottom, which could easily be cut off. 

And Piccadilly in the 1940s - I never can resist a  then and now shot! Do you see the orange and white double decker on the right? It may have been red, with the film perhaps turning reds to orange.

Mine laborers at the end of their shift.

Normal Rockwell's Labor Day cover for 1943 Saturday Evening Post, Liberty Girl, to honor all the jobs women had been doing while men were off fighting WW II.

Some folks have said unions don't have much place these days in the job market. But I certainly cheered for the workers at Amazon who formed a union, as well as those in Starbucks. The working conditions did need to be improved. And this is the only way a group of workers can have a voice.

Happy Labor Day America!

The first Labor Day was held in 1882. Its origins stem from the desire of the Central Labor Union to create a holiday for workers. It became a federal holiday in 1894. It was originally intended that the day would be filled with a street parade to allow the public to appreciate the work of the trade and labor organizations. After the parade, a festival was to be held to amuse local workers and their families. In later years, prominent men and women held speeches. This is less common now, but is sometimes seen in election years. One of the reasons for choosing to celebrate this on the first Monday in September, and not on May 1, which is common in the rest of the world, was to add a holiday in the long gap between Independence Day and Thanksgiving.

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Today's quote:

As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. -Edith Wharton, novelist (24 Jan 1862-1937)

May Day is for celebrating spring and laborer's rights

Happy May Day to all! Or Happy Beltaine to all my pagan friends!

Just look who has returned! The Lilies of the Valley!
These photos were taken Sat. April 25, just before a lot of rain. I'm so glad these plants came up through the mulch which had been spread lavishly around.

The laborers used to parade down the streets on May Day...here are a few photos of New York parades.

These laborers in mills, factories, and food processing plants would take the day to display that they were doing the work that kept our world going.  They might just do it again today...

 I didn't even notice the hairy dead thing there, but I wonder if it will regenerate.

The flame azaleas are blooming, but don't seem very prolific anywhere.

Today's Quote:

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

Mary Oliver
In Blackwater Woods