A Mill Town Boy Remembers Labor Day

It was a spectacular holiday weekend in north Georgia. Refreshing northwest winds bathed the state in dry, warm air and filled the sky with puffy cumulus clouds one usually sees rolling in off the Atlantic. 

For about thirty of the 55 years of our dual career my wife and I were accustomed to working on weekends and most holidays. We worked so that others could enjoy their day experiencing some of the most significant natural and cultural resources in the nation. We consider it an honor to have done so but at the same time have come to appreciate the opportunity to share and celebrate these special days with others. In sharing them with my children, in the quiet of the evening I'm often left with memories of Labor Day picnics.

Those picnics were day-long affairs held in Burlington, West Virginia, by the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company to honor their employees and families on the workers' holiday. The company had been the major employer in my hometown for over three generations. By 1960 the community and company were indeed a family and this day was their reunion. With four to five thousand people in attendance it was a big event featuring plenty of food and beverages in addition to carnival rides, dancing, bingo and board games, swimming, model train rides, pony rides, softball, foot races and similar activities, real airplane rides at $2 a ride, and a playground filled with wonderfully dangerous equipment including the greasy pig, flying boats, two merry-go-rounds - one a center-pivot - and a very tall and fast sliding board. None of that equipment could approach today's safety standards. The big day ended with a free movie under the stars at the drive-in theater next door.

The Old Tybee Ranger was three when this photo was taken at the Burlington campground 

Although many of the kids I played with on those days ended up working at the mill many of them went on to college, military service or other opportunities and adventures that took them away from small town life. In the long run I think those who left made the right decision. Earlier this summer the mill closed abruptly putting over 600 workers out of jobs that had supplied their families with good union wages and benefits to match. Today, the mill sits idle after several changes in ownership and a slow, decades-long decline in both the talented workforce and demand for the coated paper it produced. It is a story heard before as one industry after another left the region. 

The mill's Labor Day picnics at Burlington ended in the 1960's and it's been almost fifty years since I spent that holiday weekend there. Still, I feel a strong affinity for the place, the big event, and those - including lots of extended family  -  living among the magnificent ridges and valleys in the shadow of the Allegheny Front.  Although they are surely challenged by the mill closing their work ethic and sense of community will insure their survival through this hard time.  We know the notable labor history of these valleys in the last century helped bring the nation through two world wars and into the limelight as the greatest economic engine on the planet. We may be left only with the memories of the holiday at Burlington and elsewhere but we cannot forget the labor, ambitions, and achievements that made the celebration possible. That's why we wish all workers, especially those in the valleys of Georges Creek, New Creek, Patterson Creek and the Potomac River, a happy Labor Day. I think the American Dream has a good future in store for all of them. There will be bumps in the road to better employment but they simply make the good times more enjoyable.  After all, it's widely known that mountains cannot stand without valleys.