It's another Monday. I began laboring when I was sixteen years old by making hotdogs at Spera's meat market. I strapped the pig intestines onto a pipe to stuff the pork, until KayBee Toy and Hobby hired me at the mall. I did that until Sibley's hired me to work retail and eventually I could sell women's shoes. I labored there - paid for college - until I worked frying chicken wings at a student union and learned to puree lasagna in a blender at a nursing home. I went to graduate school and labored at a bank and then a home for mentally disabled adult men. I worked at a nature preserve for the Beargrass Task Force and for the University of Louisville stuffing material into files. I then worked at a high school for ten years before working at Syracuse University. I worked for Upward Bound, LeMoyne College, Liberty Partnerships Program and the Reading and Language Arts Center so I could earn a doctorate. Now I labor at Fairfield University for the Connecticut Writing Project.
This is a celebration that I've had the luxury to work and to earn a salary. That is not the case for a large portion of global populations.
I've been able to labor so that I could earn more education to advance myself. Work, I've found, brings me to the next steps in my life and I'm thankful that I've been afforded opportunities to provide my might and mind to serve others. For a short time I lived in Clarksville, Indiana - home of Rosie the Riveter - and not a day goes by when I don't nod my head in the direction of all who worked before me so I can work today.
It takes might. It takes ingenuity. And it takes dedication. Work, as exhausting as it is, gives a man or a woman opportunity.
And there's much, much more work to be done.
Happy Labor Day. Appreciate all who dedicate themselves to providing more chances to have a shot for others in this world. Not everyone is so lucky.
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