Unsurprisingly, I have some thoughts on what constitutes a "worker." The term is generally used to denote blue-collar workers and tradesmen, to whom it certainly applies and in spades. But people who shower before, not after, work are also workers. I've spent my post-military life working at a desk. My oldest sister had a long career in telecommunications, ending up as a Regional Vice President for a company you would surely recognize were I to name it, and she certainly worked to get to that point. My Dad farmed for many years but later hung up his plow in exchange for a management position in the John Deere plant in Waterloo, Iowa. My brother was a master artisan with wood, having spent a lot of time building custom cabinetry in homes in places like Beverly Hills before turning to building custom stereo speakers, accumulating several patents along the way. 

Everybody in my family works, some of us with our backs, some of us with our heads. Regardless of whether your work is at a keyboard or on an assembly line, if you provide value in exchange for your effort, you are a worker. Granted these days it's getting harder to find something to labor at, but that's not the point.

There is, of course, a certain satisfaction in working physically on a task. When I was a teenager, my friends and I all worked at whatever we could find. A lot of us did farm work in the summers; I walked beans, made hay, helped at my uncle's livestock auction barn, and de-tasseled corn for the old Pioneer Seed Company. In the fall and winter, I ran a trap-line. Later, when I had the coveted driver's license, I ranged farther afield, working on roofing crews in the summer and at various other odd jobs. 

And, of course, I remember fondly the years of 1977 and 1978, when my father, my brother, and I were building the house my parents lived in for thirty years. The foundation and the huge fireplace/chimney were all local white limestone, which the three of us quarried, cut with hammer and chisel, and mortared into place by hand; Dad once reckoned that we put 70 tons of stone into that house, and we handled each rock a minimum of five times, between quarrying, loading into the truck, unloading at the site, moving for cutting, and mortaring into place. At the finale, my skinny 16-year-old self was sent down into the chimney with an iron spud to break up the loose mortar that had fallen down onto the smoke shelf:

Now that was some laboring.

One of the gems Dad dropped on me when I was a young man was that "...there are no lousy jobs, just lousy people," and I always knew that by "lousy," Dad meant "people who don't want to work." It didn't much matter to the Old Man what someone worked at, just that they were willing to work, to exchange their own particular skills, abilities, talents, and experience for compensation; to exchange effort for value.

That's what working is.

Ask anyone you meet, "What do you do?" The answer, probably 9 times out of 10, will be to describe their job, their trade, their occupation - their work. Our work, in large part, defines us; it shapes our lives and our selves; it contributes to our communities. It enables us to build wealth, to eventually lay aside our burdens, and, if we have planned well, comfortably enjoy our golden years.

When it comes to the nature of work, few have described it better than Annie Louisa Coghill:

Work, for the night is coming:
Work through the morning hours;
Work while the dew is sparkling:
Work mid springing flowers;
Work when the day grows brighter;
Work in the glowing sun;
Work, for the night is coming,
When man's work is done.

So, today is not all about grilling and drinking a few beers. It's about recognizing the rest of the year, when we work through the sunny days, through the seasons, producing value, exchanging our effort for reward. 

Still, today is intended as a break for the working folks. Plenty of us will be enjoying the late summer day, grilling, and having a few beers or other beverages. We've earned it. Here in the Great Land, summer has already given way to a typically chilly, damp Alaska fall, but I have a funny feeling that later today, the ATV will come out, and I'll go enjoy some south-central Alaskan scenery. However you do it, enjoy the day! Work, after all, returns tomorrow.