Linda Pizzi takes a breath and writes. Sometimes topical, otherwise random. Creative expression, thoughts, and musings. This blog, one among many, is for me enough.
I have this thing where I don’t want to make anyone else labor on Labor Day. Of course, that’s impossible. Someone has to be working at hospitals for in-patients and emergencies, at power plants so that the world doesn’t heat up too much or go about their lives by candlelight. Many more of us just gotta work on this holiday.
This morning I got an early start walking the dog; our front desk manager at the building where I live is working and Z is picking up trash from the sidewalk. On 21st Street people carried their coffees from local cafes, the Center City District cleaner smiled at me as I guided Pepper away from his sidewalk sweeper on the way to Rittenhouse Square. On the way back to my building I passed two young men hauling large, heavy garbage bins out of a restaurant on Sansom Street; they dumped the bins into a truck that I could smell from a block away. An Uber dropped off a guy at the upscale fitness center a little further down the block. Thanks to all of you, especially those who have to lug that smelly heavy stuff!
Anthony Aveni’s Book of the Year (Free Library of Philadelphia) notes that Labor Day is “exclusively American.” The book discusses the holiday’s history, initiated with a union-sponsored parade in New York City on September 5, 1882. According to Aveni, “ten thousand (workers) left their jobs and paraded up Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue from 14th to 42nd Street, ending the day with a picnic, a dance, and fireworks.” That day a union leader gave a spirited speech. Eventually, the holiday was made an official national holiday by Congress in 1894. This year President Biden came to Philly for our city’s Labor Day parade, a celebration not much different from NYC’s in the 19th century.
Aveni’s chapter opens with the Walt Whitman poem, I Hear America Singing, the best tribute for this day and to those who deserve to be recognized:
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
Breathtakes 