Going back to the VFTB’s narrative of three weeks ago and piggy-backing off of the Smith-Barney Investment Agency narrative, we look to the celebration of the upcoming federal holiday, which many seem to celebrate as just a day off from work, and many do not celebrate as the day we honor those who do work.

One of William Shakespeare’s works was a comedy titled, Love’s Labors Lost, where the theme of the play, as was written in Study.com as “The major themes in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost include love, education, and cleverness. Most of the main characters are focused on building their future careers, but they soon realize that jobs are meaningless compared to being in love. Also, in this comedy, the characters are engrossed in their studies.”

In that description of the theme of that play, we see the words, “future careers,” “education,” “jobs,” “engrossed in studies,” all words indicating some type of connection with the meaning of the word, work, or as the title calls it, labor.

This coming Monday, we celebrate, as we do every first Monday in September, Labor Day, where we pay tribute to those who work to keep this country going as best it can. It is a day to pay tribute to the input and accomplishments of the workers of America. A product of the Labor Movement in the latter part of the 19th century, it was made a federal holiday in 1894.

Many Europeans who migrated to these United States between 1820 1nd 1920 came to this country for a variety of reasons. The freedom to worship their religion was one of the reasons, but many historians feel the biggest reason was for the economic opportunities offered in this country, that people could not find in their own countries.

As a result of the emigration to America, factories could hire more workers, though wages were not very good, and many factory owners even felt they could hire children at a fraction of what they were paying adults to work, this resulting in Child Labor Laws, Child Education Laws, and the creation of Labor Unions across this country.

Some may feel that unions are more harm than good to the economy of this nation, but back then they were extremely necessary to protect children working dangerously in factories and adults being overworked, underpaid, and often injured, even maimed with regard to a safe working environment.

Even though I wasn’t working between the 20s way back when, I, for one, am grateful to my unions, on a local, state, and national levels, in my time for allowing me to be paid comfortably, to be treated fairly, to be offered subsidies in the forms of insurance coverage, other financial opportunities for extra work within my field where I could apply for any of them, to supplement my income for the work I was doing. I cite coaching, extra coverage in school situations, and a wage that helped cover some of the increases in cost of living during the years of my career.

In order, though, to take advantage of those opportunities, as I did with my main job, I had to do the work. One of my favorite lines in the movie, Rudy, was when Dan Devine told the team before their final regular season game, “No Excuses, do the work!” While coaching the girls’ softball team at Falconer Central School, we had yearly t-shirts made with motivational sayings on them, and one year that Dan Devine quote from Rudy was our go-to line.

Back in the 1960s, there was a television sit-com titled, The Many Lives of Dobie Gillis, starring Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver. Denver played a beatnik, who was Doby’s best friend, Maynard G. Krebs, and every time Maynard said the word “work” in conversation, he would repeat it in a loud, somewhat frightening manner, as if work could be detrimental to his health.

Work today seems to be an example of Maynard G. Krebs’s persona. Work seems to be waning from what it meant to those who came to this country a hundred or two hundred years ago seeking better lives and being willing to work for it. There are some today, who, especially after the pandemic, have chosen to work less, but want to receive more.

The backbone of this country, in my opinion, is its workforce. It is earning an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. It is not wanting something for nothing. It’s taking pride in seeing that paycheck and celebrating your effort in earning what the numbers on it represent. They represent the sweat, the strain, the dedication, the example shown to others, especially those who have come after you, in being a positive part of the economy of this nation, by being a member of its Labor Force.

To those of you who are a part of that Labor Force, have a well-deserved Happy Labor Day!