Sunday, September 4, 2011

Labor Day

Tomorrow our country celebrates Labor Day in honor of the economic and social contributions of workers. Here are a few of the Labor Day-related thoughts swirling around in my head this Labor Day Eve...

First, like Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer, Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer. I'm not sure summer can be over - officially or unofficially - if the temperatures outside are still in the upper nineties during the day and the upper seventies at night.

Second, despite the fact that Labor Day is both a Federal Holiday and a State Holiday in all 50 states, Labor Day is not recognized by Texas A&M University. Faculty and staff are expected to report to work and students are expected to attend classes. This is a bummer on many levels. Our Labor Day weekend travels had to be cut short, because even though the kids don't have school on Monday, Tom has to work. I also feel badly for students, who will be out late tonight (Sunday) for TAMU's evening football game but will be expected to rise and shine for 8am classes tomorrow (Monday) morning.

I have a theory as to why TAMU chooses not to recognize Labor Day, but since my theory has to do with politics and I promised myself I'd avoid political topics as much as possible on this blog (let's just say that the city in which I was raised and the city in which I live are about as politically opposite as two cities can be), I won't go into great detail here. I will say, however, that while universities have every right to honor and recognize whatever (societal, economic, military) contributions they deem worthy, in my opinion, choosing to blatantly neglect others has the potential to promote ignorance and intolerance.

Third, I'm giddy with excitement over the return of NCAA football. The Iowa Hawkeyes (where Tom and I went to undergrad), Wisconsin Badgers (where I grew up), Nebraska Huskers (where Tom grew up), and the Michigan Wolverines (where Tom went to grad school and we lived for six years) all won. We're watching the TAMU Aggies play SMU as I type, and if they can pull out a victory our teams will be five for five on the first football weekend of the year. Ah, football - you make my Labor Day weekend complete.

Now if only it were a three-day weekend...

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