I declare this National ‘Me’ Day

“The days of our years are threescore years and 10” – so we are told by the Bible, and by industrial safety films that warn us to use welding equipment correctly if we want to keep it that way.

And for the most part, we try to fill those days as best we can with happy memories and worthwhile pursuits. But sometimes we give them really silly names.

Labor Day. Labour Day. Laaaaabor Day.

We always get Labor Day off, whether we’re students or government workers, yet sometimes you just have to stop and ask why. The day is so misunderstood, that sometimes it completely escapes people that it’s even a holiday.

I spoke with a friend Thursday who complained about how much weekend homework she had. I reminded her about the extra day, and she said she had completely forgotten about it. (Some professors seem to believe that “Labor Day” means they should pile more labor on their students.)

But I can’t say that I’m very surprised. Labor Day is part of a group of holidays, including Arbor Day and Armistice Day, which are typically met with gape-jawed looks of incomprehension by people asking, “What’s an ‘arbor’?”

In the hierarchy of holidays, Labor Day has a severe inferiority complex. It’s picked on by days like All Saint’s Day, which at least has a religious background to justify its existence. Labor Day is a real sad sack of a holiday, a day so confused as to be the antithesis of labor.

As another one of my friends, Frank Perry, said, “It’s called Labor Day, but nobody wants to work on that day – they all want to go to picnics and parties. It’s really ironic.”

I always say, if you’re going to take a day off from work, you should at least know why you’re getting a day off. So here, in a short (and possibly inaccurate) nutshell is the history of Labor Day, because I care about you:

The observance of Labor Day began over 100 years ago, conceived by labor unions as a testament to their cause. It was due partly to an incident at the Pullman railroad sleeping car factory, where workers decided to strike because of low wages. President Grover Cleveland declared the strike a federal crime and deployed troops to the factory, resulting in the death of two workers.

Protests against President Cleveland’s harsh methods suddenly made appeasing the nation’s workers a political issue, and Cleveland passed a bill establishing a national Labor Day as part of an attempt to win the 1894 election. (Note: It didn’t work.)

Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor, called it “the day for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed … that the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it.”

So, as you and your loved ones stuff your gaping maws with hamburgers and potato salad this weekend, remember to “touch shoulders” in a “marching phalanx” (whatever that is).

And thank God that you are part of the hard-working student union, where, if we all band together, we can stand up for our rights and demand better wages for a shorter work day.

Remember, you are just a link in the chain.

Well, now that you’ve gained a greater respect for Labor Day, I bet you’re asking yourself, what about all those other holidays nobody cares about?

What about Arbor Day, Secretary’s Day and Boxing Day? Why don’t I get those days off?

Arbor Day (from the Latin word meaning “tree”) was started in Nebraska, because, logically, there aren’t a lot of trees there. The secretary of the territory decided to offer prizes as incentives for people and organizations to start planting trees. It worked, and April 22 was established as Arbor Day.

(Arbor Day has been usurped by Earth Day, possibly because most people would probably identify “arbor” as a type of fungus.)

Boxing Day (December 26) is so named because it is the day after Christmas, and at this point most people are so sick of being around their relatives and their innumerable screaming kids that they start punching each other. The holiday was established by Queen Victoria and became immensely popular; people would walk from door to door with boxes looking for handouts, and would be immediately pummeled.

Nobody seems to know why Secretary’s Day (April 24) exists. Most assume it is a conspiracy thought up by Hallmark and flower companies, but I have a feeling that it was mostly due to the sudden “snapping” of an overworked corporate peon somewhere. This would explain why April 24 is also national Remembrance of Man’s Inhumanity To Man Day.

(There is a national Boss Day – October 18 – but strangely enough, people always manage to forget it.)

Why name something a national “day” if, 100 years from now, nobody’s going to remember or care? Still, although only a small number of America’s workers still belong to unions, you can bet there would be a tremendous ruckus if you tried to revoke Labor Day. Think the baseball strike controversy magnified 1,000 times.

And one of those people on the picket line would be me – we work hard, even if we are only college students.

Will somebody tell me where to go stand in line to get a national Hamburger Day declared?