When I think of my father I think of his aluminum, workingman's lunch box. I see my mother making the ham-and-cheese sandwiches and wrapping them in wax paper, adding an apple, some homemade cookies and filling the red thermos with hot coffee, then latching the box and placing it on the kitchen counter top.
I am proud to be the daughter of a steelworker and one of the things I treasure most about Pittsburgh is our blue-collar roots and work ethic. You went to work...simply and strongly....you went to work. At the Allegheny Ludlum steel mill, my father worked shifts --- 8-4, 4-12, 12-8. During the weeks he worked 12-8 we played outside even more than usual so Dad could sleep.
I do not recall my father ever missing work, nor, do I recollect my mother taking a nap. Providing for the family and making a home, my parents went to work. When my oldest nephew, now an apprenticed electrician, was doing a report on unions, I called on my English-major skills and assisted in the effort. I am proud of Nathan and the success he's made of himself and the evidenced work ethic as he gets up before dawn to head to work. It's cool being able to look at a major project and be able to say, "My nephew worked on that." Our research of unions and the steel industry found that Western Pennsylvania was the second-leading producer of steel at one time and it was the workers from our region who produced the steel that built the Brooklyn Bridge, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building.
As previously noted, I'm old and now can better appreciate how much society changes. Traveling and talking with residents in the many former mill towns and manufacturing hubs I can join in their lament that "we don't make anything here anymore."
Yet, on this Labor Day 2014, it's important to remember that once we did and those workers, quite literally and metaphorically, built the nation. As we shift into a more technologically driven and computer-fueled workforce, it will serve us well to take pride in the work we do, to contribute to our shared community and to have the ethic to get up and go to work.
Here's to the workers and the laborers! Think of them today in between snacking on a grilled hot dog and swimming at the pool.
sj;