Celebrating Labor Day 2022

Most Labor Day weekends in north Georgia are enjoyed in beautiful weather foreshadowing the spectacular and seemingly endless fall so characteristic of this region. This year's weekend was quite an exception as several inches of rain bathed north Georgia to the point of severe flooding in the northwest mountains. Granted it was not the best environment in which to cerebrate the world of work.

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 other workers and their families could enjoy their day experiencing some of the most significant natural and cultural resources in the nation. We considered it an honor to have done so but at the same time came to appreciate the opportunity to share and celebrate these special days with family and friends. In sharing the stories with my children in the quiet of the evening after events of the day ended I often focused on 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 thrilling playground equipment could begin to approach today's safety standards. And if the activities of the day weren't enough, sundown signaled it was time for a free movie under the stars at the drive-in theater next door.

 OTR at the Burlington campground in 1949 . . .

. . . and 1959

Although many of the playmates 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. In the summer of 2018 the mill closed abruptly putting over 600 workers out of jobs that had supplied their families with good union wages and benefits for generations. 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 was a story heard often in the region as one industry after another declined or disappeared entirely. It is a story we hear today in many industrial regions in the United States.

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 these hard time. They've done it before.

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.

Happy Labor Day, Americans, wherever you are.