Labor Day: As summer winds down ... turn your computer off

Labor Day Weekend.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, the bridge between San Francisco and Oakland is closed in what's becoming a nearly-annual occurrence. A huge chunk of the bridge is being cut out and a new section is being slid in, creating a detour that will allow the completion of a more seismic-safe span. The closure is forcing the region to pause from the usual frenzy. I say, good!

What's this holiday all about, anyway? It arose from congressional reaction to Grover Cleveland's shut-down of a labor strike in the 1890s. The powers-that-be granted an annual "worker's holiday."

The picture above left shows a workers' Labor Day parade down San Francisco's Market Street in 1934. Ordinary working men and women have long struggled for an 8-hour workday, better pay, the right to unionize, health care benefits, and such.

When I was growing up, the first day of school was always the Tuesday after Labor Day. These days, back-to-school has crept earlier for a variety of reasons.

Now, Labor Day weekend is just an occasion that marks the unofficial end of summer. Labor Day has devolved into a marketing platform for mattress sales and used car clearances.

So how much progress have the workers really made?

Today, many people just count themselves lucky to have a job. Today, jobs frequently become task masters far beyond eight hours, increasingly demanding greater shares of people's attention. And the driver behind it all (in my opinion) isn't some sinister push-pull between labor and capitalists so much as the spread of 24/7 technology and raised expectations for instantaneous response. Remember the days before the curse of email?

Can we slow any of this down? No. It's impossible to roll back to "the good old days." But we CAN occassionally turn it off.

Are you doing anything fun to the celebrate Labor Day? How about declaring Monday to be an email-free day? Turn off your computer. Don't check Facebook. Don't issue any tweets on Twitter. Focus on real-time, person-to-person interaction. Spend some time with friends and family having fun. Or do whatever it is you do to recharge your batteries.

Because, more than anything else, Labor Day now represents the last chance to catch your breath before sprinting through fall, the holidays and the end of the year.

Do yourself a favor: recharge and refresh. Turn off your computer. Just for a day.

Happy May Day!

April showers bring May flowers -- says the cliche. And it's now the merry month of May!

In Europe, today's the day they celebrate the onset of spring. It probably dates back to a pagan celebration. By the time of the Middle Ages, the Church had usurped the festival, and a virgin was selected as the May Queen. (Side note: One of the life highlights of my sister-in-law, Gail, was being the May Queen as young child in parochial school.) In the olden days (further back than when Gail was MQ) they'd carry the May Queen over the fields, trying to transfer her fertility to the soil.

Somehow or other, all of this morphed into the May pole dance that you might be familiar with.

And then there's other May Day references:

Of course, there's the pinko-commie connection. The socialist labor union declared May 1 as International Labor Day in Europe. This was in 1889. Seven years earlier (1882), our American labor movement had already decided Labor Day was the first Monday of September. We were ticked off that the foreigners had chosen a different day, so we retaliated. In 1894, our Congress made the September day a national holiday. Relations between socialists and red-blooded Americans haven't been the same since.

And then there's the May Day (or mayday) that is the distress signal for aircraft and ships. That one has nothing whatsoever to do with the others. My exhaustive research shows it is an adaptation of the French expression (venez) m'aider "(come) help me!"

I share these tidbits in order to demonstrate my ability to share information of dubious relevance. Can you tell it's Friday? Can you tell I'm avoiding real work?

Enjoy the flowers of May!