I get up in the morning and I go to work. I have a day off and I work in the yard. It rains and I work in the house. At night I work at my computer. Sometime it seems like I just work, work, work. This probably makes me just like most of the rest of you. WORK is a four letter word that rules my life, so this year I am going to celebrate Labor Day.

Labor Day is the federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September. We get to have a day to celebrate workers. That's me and probably you. So let's know how it all began back in 1882. Matthew Maguire proposed the holiday while he was secretary of the Central Labor Union of New York. The first Labor Day celebration was in New York City, September 5, 1882. Oregon was the first state to officially adopt the holiday, and 30 other states then followed. It was not until 1894, after the deaths of workers during the Pullman Strike, that the U.S. Congress voted to make Labor Day a federal holiday. President Grover Cleveland signed the bill.

Although early years found towns and cities celebrating this day with businesses closed, parades, picnics, political and labor speeches, the holiday has long meant the end of summer to me. It used to be that school never began until after Labor Day. We stopped wearing white after Labor Day. Summer was over. The approach of Labor Day also signaled a trip to Stout's Shoes to get a new pair of saddles or penny loafers. This annual trip brought occasion to see Stout's parrot and the baskets that carried payment and purchases to be wrapped to the office via wires just below the ceiling. Whoosh, as quickly as the salesman pulled the cord, the transaction was underway. My new, stiff, uncomfortable school shoes were yet another reminder that summer barefoot days were over.

Labor Day today is often a work day. This being a big retail weekend, many shopkeepers and salespeople work, as do restaurant, gas station, and hospital employees, police and firemen. Homemakers don't get a day off, nor moms and dads. Planning a work-free day in the 21st century may be next to impossible. . . not like the good old days when blue laws kept most businesses closed on Sundays. Oh, for bygone days and the simpler ways of life.

If you have to work this Labor Day, I will take the day off for you. If you are a lucky reveler, thank a person around you for working so you can celebrate. I also take my hat off to all the workers of Broad Ripple. Thanks for making it a memorable, fun place to visit. Thank you business owners, thank you Broad Ripple Village Association, thank you landlords, thank you police and EMTs, thank you garbage collectors and DPW, thank you servers and cooks, thank you entertainers, thank you retailers. You are appreciated.

From the U.S. Department of Labor website: "The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership-the American worker."