Tuesday 4~ Labor Day

 Good Tuesday Morning! We are talking about Labor Day today, but I wrote about what we did on Labor Day yesterday. Actually we ceased from our labors and just relaxed and enjoyed a beautiful day! 

Labor Day




Welcome to Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4 where we ask 4 questions every week.


Labor Day is Monday, Sept. 7. The original Labor Day was September 5, 1882 when over 10,000 workers took to the streets to protest 12 hour work days for low wages and cruel practices of employers.
The first official Labor Day was on September 7th in Oregon.
President Grover Cleveland signed on for the first offical federal observance of Labor Day following the Pullman Strike in which government forces shot dead many unarmed workers strking over dramatic wages cuts and dramatic cost of living increases in a company town. Workers pay was cut 30% and they could not afford basic food. When a group of men tried to negotiate with Pullman, they were fired and 34 of them were "unalived"* by government forces.   

1. How do you observe Labor Day and were you aware of the background of it?

I really didn't know that particular story as shared above.  * My question: Where did the term "unalived" come from? That's strange terminology to me...I guess it's the pc way of saying they were killed. I believe in just telling it like it is...as sad as it is. No sense in mincing words! It sounds like it was a very sad chapter in our country's history.  Thankfully our observance of Labor Day is much more peaceful.  We didn't do anything extra special, but what we did do I wrote about yesterday HERE.


2, Many holidays become just a day off rather than a real commemoration of an event.
How do you propose we can remedy that?

A lot of communities and cities have special events and parades, etc., to commemorate these kinds of holidays. Certainly there should be more education about these holidays in our schools. I guess because I grew up in a more rural area, Labor Day was never really something that we understood that well, because it didn't seem to connect to the kinds of workers that were in our area...we didn't have labor unions, etc., like they do in the big cities,  


3. What is the most labor intensive job or activity you have done? 

When we moved back to Florida from Maine I wanted to get my foot in the door with the county school board, so I accepted a position in the Testing Department. This meant that I had to deliver testing booklets to all of the county schools for their standardized testing. Then I had to pick them back up. It was a lot of lifting and very hard on my back. I was almost 50 years old at the time, and in much better condition than I am now, but still it was hard work for me. Then the county decided to relocate the Testing Department to another location, which meant that I had to physically pack and move all of those boxes of testing materials, mostly by myself. They did provide a truck and workers to transport them to the new place, but I had to do all the labor of arranging them in the new location on shelves. There was also the daily routine of managing paperwork and scanning the tests for scoring, which involved a lot of repetitive motion. Consequently I developed a very severe case of carpal tunnel. It was extremely painful, and I had to make a work comp claim and take some time off. The best part of this story was that the school board realized that I should not have been doing all of that hard labor by myself, and they actually "promoted" me to a much better position as a school Bookkeeper, which was much more in keeping with my skills and better pay too! So all my hard labor paid off, but I truly suffered in the meantime. I am thankful to the Lord for rescuing me out of that situation and moving me on to much better things.

4. If your income was cut by 30% could you still survive? What would you do?

If our current "income" was cut by 30%, it would be quite difficult for us to survive, since we are retired and dependent upon a very fixed income. We do not have a huge savings account, and we are very careful about maintaining those funds. We would most likely have to consider selling our home and hopefully finding something that we could pay for outright and not have a mortgage. Or we would have to consider living with our kids.  In the past, when we were still young and able to work, we would just look for another job...but we are both at an age where working is not really feasible, although if I really had to, I could probably find a part time job doing something not too physical.  

I am very thankful to God for providing for us in all of our years. There were many lean times when we were raising our three children, but we never had to do without the essentials of food, clothing, and shelter. God always took care of us even when things were difficult, and our children never really knew any kind of deprivation. They may have thought they were being deprived sometimes when we couldn't buy them the new expensive shoes or jeans or "toys" that their peers may have had, but they always had what they needed and they were well taken care of.  

Here's a favorite passage that has always meant a lot to me...

Psalm 37:3-5 New King James Version

"3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;

Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

4 Delight yourself also in the Lord,

And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the Lord,

Trust also in Him,

And He shall bring it to pass."

I can attest to this being true!! Amen.

Now we must go "give blood" for our quarterly lab work and then off to breakfast somewhere! Hip Hip Hooray! LOL.  Have a lovely day!!!