In HONOR of LABOR DAY
______ TO THOSE WHO HELP ______
May God bless the practical women and men,
Who rise from the hay every day, and then
Produce what we need
Without rancor or greed,
Make things run,
Get things done,
Keep things clean,
So they're fit to be seen,
And continuously smooth the way
So that we may live comfortably every day.
~ FreeThinke
~ § ~
And Now a Most Engaging Example of American Enterprise at its best
from a
Superior Domestic Cleaning Service
TOP CLEAN – DEEP CLEAN
•• ALL GRADES IN BETWEEN ••
Kitchens and Baths Gleaming
• Customers Always Beaming •
From Fan Blades to Window Shades
••• We Work for High Grades •••
••• Wipe Away Your Tears •••
We Clean Crystal Chandeliers
~~~ WE DO WINDOWS ~~~
• Pressure-wash walks and patios
• Clean and organize closets
• Wash and put away clothes
• Help with pet needs
• Check your house in your absence
I wish that more Americans respected our Blue Collar workers. Most Americans, at least the ones "in power" do not.
ReplyDeleteAs a child, I was taunted and teased because my father was a grease monkey. All the other fathers in my school class were white collar workers -- and very high on the food chain.
BTW, Dad willingly took the day off on Labor Day, but, at the same time, decried much about its origins. Dad worked in a closed shop, wherein the union wielded great power and order union members to vote for the Democratic Party.
IF those who at ine time had "The Upperr Hand" had had the wisdom and the decency to RESPECT those who played supportng roles and worked at relatively humble tasks, and tconsequently treated their servants, underlings, subalgerns, employees –– whatever –– with COURTESY, a modicum of APPRECIATION, GENEROSITY and UNDERSTANDING of the pressures they faced and recignized their true significance, Marxism would never have reared its ugly head, because there would have been NO NEED –– and NO ROOM –– NO MOTIVATION –– for the Resentment, Resistance, Rebellion, Recalcitrance and widespread Destruction the Left has successfully visited on the land.
DeleteIt may sound "sappy," but in truth ALL we need to do is FOLLOW the GOLDEN RULE in EVERY transaction, and ALL WOUD BE WELL.
I was fortunate to grow up in a little farm town that was all blue collar. Those who didn't farm worked in factories or in some kind of manual labor or skilled trade.
DeleteCalling someone a hard worker was the highest compliment you could pay.
SF,
DeleteCalling someone a hard worker was the highest compliment you could pay.
That is true for much of the country. But not along the coasts where the elites reign and rule.
Forgot to say...Nice bit of verse with those rhyming couplets! I find it difficult to write sensible and meaningful rhyming couplets.
ReplyDeleteMy father had a great facility for writing doggerel. My mother had a knack for writing beautiful, elegant prose, and actually was a poet.
DeleteUnfortunaetely mother didn't take her abundant gifts seriously enough to bother preserving what she wrote. –– a great personal loss to me –– and possibly to the world. We'll never know.
I could never hope to repay the debt I owe my parents simply for being who they were. The older I get, the more I appreciate their unique qualities, there fine character, and their incredible generosity to me.
I often wish they were still here, so i could tell them that.
I wish more people were to undergo the college education I received. I studied Marine Engineering. In addition to learning engineering, I learned to braze, weld, repair engines, boilers and refrigeration units, machine parts on lathes and end-mills, operate diesels, generators and turbines, and navigate and load a ship. It was a "white collar" job performed in greasy coveralls. When something broke, you were often 5,000 miles from the nearest shipyard.
ReplyDeleteToday, I never get my hands dirty. I miss, "the good old days".
Happy Labour Day!
I greatly admire people who work with their hands, FJ, and have the ability to BUILD, REPAIR, and properly MAINTAIN what society needs to keep its wheels turning smoothly and efficiently.
DeleteI'm glad to know that about you. I, Alas! was raised to be a member of "The Executive Class" –– a rather vain ambition my parents held for me since birth.
But despite their fervent, well-meaning efforts to guide me into a good, safe, upper-middle-class berth, I chose, instead, to work with MY hands by aiming high and doing everything I could to become a successful concert pianist.
I acquired the skill, as I believe you know, but the Big Sucess I sought eluded me –– as it does the vast majority of those who choose that particular path. The Path to Parnassus is littered with the corpses of profound geniuses who never reached the summit.
NEVERTHELESS, i don't regret one single minute of the tens of thousands of hours I put in becoming intimately acquainted with a large body of the very best creative endeavors mere mortals have ever produced.
Very little of my MONEY came s a direct result of my labor, but virtually ALL my J-O-Y did. I doubt it could get any beter than that.
I'd be a greedy ingrate if I dared even dream of asking for more.
Very few people have the rare privilege of making a living following their dreams, FT. Most of us were forced to "make a living" doing something disagree-able in order to gain some "leisure time" with which to pursue our dreams. I only wish that we hadn't raised "professional" activities to the godlike status and surplus wages they occupy. I miss 'amateur" endeavors and venues by which a talented amateur could demonstrate his skill. Even the once vaunted "Olympic" games have fallen to crass commercialism and fill their arenas with paid professionals and future "celebrity endorsers". If only Kafka's Josephine could dream of performing w/o a State subsidy. How happy the other Mousevolk would be!
DeleteMt Helicon, where Athena takes her bath is not Parnassos or Olympia. It's hot, there are very few shady groves, but it's where the Muses also go to bathe, and where one can find a certain winged stallion, son of Poseidon and Medusa, and possibly capture him, and take him for a ride.
DeleteFrom Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in Three Generations:
ReplyDeleteYou may have heard the old proverb, “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” In Japan, the expression goes, “Rice paddies to rice paddies in three generations.” The Scottish say “The father buys, the son builds, the grandchild sells, and his son begs.” In China, “Wealth never survives three generations.”
Around the world there are many variations on this theme, all used to describe the tendency of the third generation of a family to squander the wealth obtained by the first.
[...]
The Third Generation, however, has no memory of want or struggle. They only know a life of plenty and are often unaware of the work that went into providing the lifestyle they now enjoy. Without this awareness, it is of little surprise when the third generation squanders the wealth their parents and grandparents worked so hard to build.
Possibly, no longer true.
I've heard the British version: From sandals to sandals in three generations.
DeleteContemporary businesses have elevated rent-seeking and cash extraction to a diabolical science, so you are probably right this little aphorism no longer holds, except perhaps for small family businesses that still depend on hard work and dedication.
Today is Labor Day, a day set aside by the United States Congress to celebrate the contributions by the working people and specifically the average hard working people of America.
ReplyDeleteOne of the many ways that we Americans differ from Socialist countries who have proven to be are that are total failures, their greatest products are misery, poverty, destitution, starvation and in some places even worse.
Work is what we do here in the USA, so that we can live and enjoy our families, and the “American way of Life”.
Not like Socialism which works until you run out of other people's money. So today we celebrate the contributions of working people, like you and I. Where a man and his wife are working hard at sometimes a thankless job to provide a nice life for their kids. Where Law abiding people. Honorable people. Enjoy Wholesome values. Appreciation of life's little things.
That's the greatness of America.
Beautiful tribute to the working people of society! You are quite witty.
ReplyDeleteThe makers vs the takers seems at a particularly dangerous ratio. And 18 trillion spent the last 8 years. On What?
ReplyDelete18-20 TRILLION spent mostly on BULLSHIT, Kid. And that's the God's honest truth.
DeleteProgressive Government = the Biggest Scam ever perpetrated on a naive, docile, tragically ill-informed and unaware people.