Some Thai Workers On "Our" Labor Day

Iron workers putting 90-degree bends in pieces of  "rebar"

Friday's post about the bar boy's home generated some questions I'll reply to another day, but since today's Labor Day in the United States, and as such a holiday - of a sort - I'm going to play along as if I'm observing this day set aside to honor working people by avoiding as much work as possible. That means a day of photos; today of some folks at work in the Land of Smiles.

Thai soldiers at the train station in Hua Hin

The U.S. pinched Labor Day from the Canadians, but I'm glad they did. I'm not quite old enough to remember the first observance here (that was 130 years ago this year) but I've enjoyed many a long weekend since, so thanks, Peter McGuire, for attending the Toronto observance in 1882 and bringing the idea back home. We "Americans" (since we in the U.S. typically dismiss the fact that there are lots of other countries in the Americas) took the idea and ran with it.

Items in a street stall get a morning dusting by the stall-keeper as a new sales day begins

A flower salesman
peddles his petals

Naturally, we in the US found a way to capitalize on the holiday, and it's become what some claim to be the second biggest shopping day of the year, second only to the day after Thanksgiving (the third Friday in November here), known as Black Friday.

Ironically, with around a quarter of the US population involved in retail businesses, they work through this three day weekend, including Labor Day itself.  Longer hours, too... so go figure. Many of the rest of us take a short trip somewhere, attend a picnic or BBQ, and, of course, shop.

It's also another of our national alcohol abuse holidays, and that often contributes to the yearly 450+ fatalities over this long weekend. May I suggest if you drink, don't drive.

However you spend the day, I hope it's a good one for you. I plan to get a nap in, somehow.