Labor Day 2026 #1

It’s Labor Day weekend in my country — unofficially serving also as the end of summer — and we are supposed to be celebrating ordinary working people (OWP). Eventually, I’ll grind into the tangled mass of sociocultural attitudes and practices clustered around the concept of OWP in America, but today I’m starting with the small and personal. Today (9/5) is the Saturday of Labor Day. Tomorrow (9/6) is my (86th) birthday. I’d prefer to celebrate the day as the birthday of the Marquis de Lafayette (born in 1757), who was a genuine hero of two separate countries, and then incidentally as coffee ice cream (my favorite flavor) day. But I recognize that lots of fine people want to celebrate my life so far and wish for me to have at least another year of it; but I’m not very good at thanking them all. The larger point is that my birthday and Labor Day come close together, every year, and occasionally coincide. And now we reach the entertainment portion of the program, with two birthday…