For many people, Labor Day marks the end of summer, just as Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer.
Due to the unique geometry of the Earth’s tilt and the angle of its rotation around the Sun, each day is now three minutes shorter (in July it was a few seconds).
This will soon result in significantly cooler days, from around mid-September. The big baking season is coming to an end.
So far, we have been spared last summer’s terrible drought with its record-breaking heat. That drought killed thousands of pine trees and landowners had to spend millions of dollars to remove the dead trees.
Back in the day when Mississippi business people were expected to wear dark suits, white shirts and ties, I dreaded summer. Those days are long gone, thanks to all the casually dressed Internet millionaires of the early 1990s.
Now I dress to keep as cool as possible, within reason. I’m always on the lookout for super-light cotton clothing.
You won’t see me in shorts and I don’t even like short sleeve shirts. Sunscreen and insect repellent are essential in the subtropical jungles of Mississippi. There’s no way I’m going to let my unprotected skin become insect food and I hate the smell of insecticides.
As a 10-times, seventh-generation Mississippian, my body is well adapted to its environment. Whenever I get tired of the heat, it gets cooler. And when I get tired of the cold, it gets warmer.
This is one of my favorite times of year. The big bake off is over. We have fall, Christmas, and spring to look forward to. Winters in Mississippi are always mild.
There are undoubtedly still some scorching hot days ahead of us, but soon we will feel the first wistful harbingers of autumn. It is a profound feeling that awakens memories and longings that are deeply embedded in our brains and souls. Do you remember your first day of school as a child?
Since Katrina in 2005, it’s been difficult to get through Labor Day without a slight feeling of dread and fear. It’s hurricane season. I’ll never forget seeing those threatening skies before Katrina and feeling an uneasy premonition of impending disaster. Who would have thought the entire state of Mississippi would experience a hurricane?
So far, the dire hurricane predictions for this summer have not come true.
There is no doubt that Mississippi’s best temperatures are in spring and fall, but these are changing seasons and the fluctuations make these mild days unpredictable.
Still, I can’t wait for the week of perfectly clear, calm weather in October, when the highs are 24 degrees and the lows at night are below 16 degrees. It’s a shame that it’s over so quickly.
I prefer spring to fall. In spring, life comes alive again and that makes me happy. In fall, life dies in preparation for winter and that makes me wistful and pensive. Thank goodness we have the holidays as an antidote!
Labor Day is one of the most recent national holidays. It arose from the American labor movement at its peak around the turn of the century. It was originally called International Workers’ Day. Many people disliked the socialist undertones. In 1894 it was officially introduced as a federal holiday.
One website describes working conditions at the turn of the century: “The machinery that made mass production possible was often very dangerous. Housed in small spaces without adequate shielding or ventilation, the manufacturing machines emitted toxic fumes and contributed to excessive heat in factories packed with workers. The exposed machinery regularly claimed lives and maimed workers. In 1900, 35,000 workers were killed in workplace accidents and 500,000 were maimed in factory accidents ranging from severed limbs to burns.”
In contrast, there were only 4,674 deaths from work-related accidents in the United States in 2018. The lifetime risk of dying at work is now one in a thousand, compared to one in 20 100 years ago. That’s a huge improvement.
Today, the average hourly wage in the United States is $30. That’s $60,000 a year.
What a difference a century can make! A hundred years ago, communism and trade unions were on the rise. Many intellectuals believed that the free market economy was capable of nothing other than the brutal exploitation of the working class.
Today, communism is virtually dead. Union membership is at an all-time low and declining rapidly. Wages and working conditions have never been better. Most Americans can choose from dozens of jobs at hundreds of different companies. That is true progress.
And it’s not just America. Global poverty, defined as living on a dollar a day, has fallen from 40 percent of the world’s population 40 years ago to 10 percent today. That’s the greatest progress in the history of the world.
And this was before the smartphone, the greatest advance in the history of human civilization, which today gives 67 percent of the world’s population access to almost unlimited information. Just imagine the progress in the next 40 years!
Anyone in America today who is willing to work hard and acquire something can live better than the kings of yesteryear.
Our system is not perfect, but if you can get up in the morning and go to work, you can live well in the USA. We have more or less full employment. Pretty much anyone who wants to work can do so. Jobs chase people.
You may not get the perfect job, but that’s why it’s called work. If you have a good attitude and try to add value to your employer, you will be successful.
No doubt some bosses are idiots. That’s human nature, not the nature of work. If you get a bad job working for an idiot, quit and look for a new job. That’s the freedom we enjoy in our country.
Every job is different. Different people like different kinds of jobs. Some people like routine, predictable jobs with a minimum of stress.
Not me. For me, it’s the opposite. If I didn’t have challenges, I would be bored to death. Luckily, as an independent businessman, every day is different and the challenges never end.
An entrepreneur is someone who works 80 hours a week to avoid having to work 40 hours a week. That’s me!
Many people learn to create very specific skill niches in which they can work flexible hours and earn good money.
The great advances in the world labor market can be summed up by one of my favorite jokes: A brain surgeon calls a plumber on the weekend because the toilet is clogged. The plumber comes, assesses the situation, and tells him that the repair will cost five hours and $3,000. “That’s outrageous,” exclaims the brain surgeon. “That’s more than I make as a brain surgeon!” To which the plumber replies, “I know, that’s more than I made as a brain surgeon.”
