Let’s drink to the hard-working people
Let’s think of the lowly of birth
Spare a thought for the rag taggy people
Let’s drink to the salt of the earth
—Salt of the Earth, The Rolling Stones
It’s Labor Day weekend. Let Oliver Anthony bewail rich men north of Richmond and bemoan the plight of working people. Today, let’s drink to the hard-working people.
People who build our houses, schools, roads, bridges, tunnels, ships, and ports. People who clean rooms, scrub floors, wash windows, and launder linens. People who fix cars, roofs and plumbing, and repair broken power lines. People who trim trees, mow grass, sweep streets, plow snow, and hang traffic lights.
People who harvest crops, who package, haul, shelf and re-shelf them, who bag them at checkout and return grocery carts. People who drive ambulances, firetrucks, buses, and taxis. People who pull smashed bodies out of wreckage, stanch bleeding, mend broken bones, nurse ailments, empty bedpans, and push wheelchairs. People who teach children, coach teams, referee and umpire Little League games.
And that’s only a partial list.
Today, let’s drink to such people.
Then tell me which workers you salute today.
Finally, let’s raise a glass to Mick Jagger. I know he’s a rich rock star. But he’s also a hard worker.
I saw him and the Stones 20 years ago at the Capital One Arena in DC. I thought after 40 grueling rock-and-roll years he’d be faded, jaded, frazzled, maybe a bit addled. He wasn’t. He pranced, strutted, jumped, and exuberantly strode up and down a runway while belting out songs for two hours straight.
And he’s still at it. At 80 years old!
Jagger is no slacker. He works hard on stage and works hard before he gets on stage. Before every tour, he puts his body through a rigorous workout routine so he’s fit to prance, strut, and jump while singing “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
He wouldn’t have to. He could coast on his reputation. But Jagger comes from working-class roots, and as he told an interviewer: Some hard working bloke’s gonna spend a week’s wages on a ticket, and I want to make sure he gets his money’s worth.
Let’s raise a glass to Mick Jagger. Let’s drink to the hard-working people. Let’s drink to the salt of the earth.
And then let’s work hard to make sure they are paid and treated as they deserve.
* * *
Thinking of generations of coal miners and their kin.
They died in mines. They died in wars. Went to church on Sunday to praise the lord, singing just a closer walk with thee, sung a bit out of tune. But they loved their wives and family.
They voted Democrat to work the seam, with an eye on the scale and the American dream, saying it’s the Union for me. The working man’s democracy.
The Kennedy boys came up the holler, saying your working too hard to get that dollar. You got the poverty. We got a plan to set you free.
Come around if you want to. Stay away if you must. Walking around with them greenbacks saying in God we trust. But God forgot about us and more. Them boys went to Ohio to work for Ford.
And by extension, or not, let us salute President Biden, the Jagger of the political world, tap dancing as fast as he can to restore the actual rights of the actual people who actually do the actual work. It’s a gas, gas, gas…
The people who locked down the lab building after the UNC shooting took place last week were the custodians.
Cheers to that! 🥃🥃
To those who are aware, your labor-related litany is obvious. But how many people are cognizant of the vital contributions of labor to the tapestry of America? Perhaps those hard-working folks are overlooked, minimized, marginalized, simply taken for granted or somehow viewed as invisible. Labor is the backbone of our national fabric and must be treated with respect and dignity. Hard-working folks are not to be given starvation wages or mistreated. We must fight for just legislation that is inclusive of all, especially workers. Let us be generous in spirit when we tip servers in restaurants. Let us affirm workers with a smile, show respect and look at the hard workers with a soft eye of appreciation, gladness and joy. Sophocles was right: “Without labor nothing prospers.”
My list: I, my husband, and so many of my dynamic friends are on the list, tending to so many of the essential services you mention. But of course I “get” the material point. I raise my glass and sing praises and gratitudes to all those, including migrant workers, who built and continue to provide the labor that gives birth to a nation, without faltering. Oh yes, and raise a huge glass to single mothers who “work hard for the money.” Cheers! 🍻
My accolades go out today to workers in the medical world, the aids, the techs, nurses, therapists, the cooks, custodians, maintenance crews, and all of those who labor to make our lives just a little bit better when we and our loved ones need it most. We expect everything to efficiently function and most of us take it all for granted, just as we do with our own intricate and complicated bodies. We don’t notice until part of the system fails. These crashes have a way of reminding us how each function depends on the flawless operation of interdependent systems that all combine to create the whole. No one function is truly independent of another. “So raise your glass to the good and the evil. Lets drink to the humble of birth.”
To the cleaners of airplanes as they pick up the mess left behind from passengers at the end of a flight. Airsick bags full of vomit….Babies diapers found under passenger seats….food items spilled on the floor…greasy headrest covers needing replacement… empty snack containers left in seat pockets…soda cans full of snuff spit. I knew many of these overlooked, hard working individuals who passed on some of their “discoveries” to me. For those whom I grossed out, I apologize.
Your gem arrived in my mailbox this morning igniting gratitude and appreciation for the hardworking people. Thoughtful comments one and all!
I second your comprehensive list of the hardworking folks who keep everything & everyone humming along…I will also mention our teachers who guide forth our young ones; and the hard work of all the students seeking to learn, and grow and know…
& thinking of the hardworking volunteers all over this land, pitching in at food kitchens, after disasters… all the moving parts and people who keep us safe and help buoy the downtrodden “the last, lonely & wretched”… & the writers, the artists, and of course our poll workers! So to the many sung & unsung heroes…raise a glass!!
Blessed Be… and gratitude…
“The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackegs, workers unite!!
There is power in the Union!!”
So sings Billy Bragg, a British punk-folk artist who celebrates worker power and working class culture. Love Jagger!! But this holiday was born of a demand for an 8 hour day and union rights and decent working conditions. THE UNION FOREVER!! DEFENDING OUR RIGHTS!! WORKERS UNITE!!
Biden should cut a campaign ad with Mick Jagger and Harrison Ford.
Could you live on minimum wage? Let us not forget the homeless and people who
live paycheck to paycheck and are dependent on gifts and hand outs. NOBODY wants to be homeless or to have to ask for food and drink.
End of rant!
Let us not forget those in our community who provide meals on a regular basis to our neighbors thru JCCM.
Thank you for this wonderful accolade to all of the many branches of the tree of workers who build, repair, clean and maintain the structures of our society. I love the quote from Mick; he is from West Yorkshire, a working class part of England.
I am happy to read everyone’s responses, all celebrating those who far too often are denigrated. I have heard teachers tell student that if they didn’t make good grades, graduate and go to college, “They could end up working as a custodian!”, not realizing and appreciating for one second how those custodians not only do their work of keeping the school building ship-shape, but often, they are the ones who notice children in distress and go to bat for them, care for them. I’ve seen that happen more than once when I was teaching. Hip-Hip Hooray for Custodians and school cooks!
My two cents – where would we be, where would the person in the penthouse office be, the passenger on the airline, the shopper in the store or online, hospital patient, commuter, the student or professor and so on – if the working folks failed to show up. This is what I ponder. Someone said “invisible” in an earlier post – and they are – except when you stop and take the time to say thanks.