Another long message from one of my favorite guys: Rod Mckuen I hope you aren't getting sick of him. He has some good stuff to say. Smiles, Sharon

LABOR DAY

Our country and every great country has been and is built on honest work. There is not only great dignity in labor, but I believe that fortune and good times only smiles on those willing to roll up their sleeves and get on with it.

Today is Labor Day in the USA. Our last great summer holiday. This is a day when we celebrate the working man and woman and give them the day off. And today we honor America's labor unions as well. Those organizations that against great odds gave us the 40 hour week, did away with child labor, helped make safety in the workplace a must, initiated overtime pay for overtime work and is still fighting for women in the work force to be paid on a parity with men.

Labor unions are much maligned and we have had a succession of administrations in our country that has tried with the help of big business to weaken and bring labor unions down. Today, then, seems like a good time to say something very positive about the Clinton/Gore administration. They gave us family leave. That's a law now, not just a dream. They go on fighting for equality in the workplace whatever your gender, color, religious belief or sexual orientation may be. During the six years of this administration we've seen laws enacted that protect the health coverage of people who move from one job to another.

There are less people on welfare in our country than ever before, a balanced budget has been submitted to Congress for the first time in a couple of dozen years and there is a move by this administration [and I hope Congress] to put our surplus funds into Social Security and education where it belongs.

We don't need tax relief. We need better schools and education for our youngsters; more day care centers in the workplace and better pay for teachers. Seniors, and I'm one of them, need to know and be assured that their country - the one they supported all their lives and contributed to - will help take care of them as they grow older. The burden of supporting their parents shouldn't fall wholly on the shoulders of their children. And the young people of today should be able to have the same kind of safety net their parents and grandparents have been guaranteed, since the Social Security act was adapted.

We are a rich and beautiful country inhabited, by the most part,. by citizens who work hard, care about each other, contribute to their communities and their country and deserve to be honestly represented by the legislators they elect.

OK, time for some truth in editorializing. I belong to a number of unions and am proud to be president of one of the great entertainment unions, The American Guild of Variety Artists. For the past 75 years we have represented comedians, singers, dancers, specialty acts, circus performers, ice shows, magicians, monologists, tab shows. Our past and present board members include the likes of George Burns, Phyllis Diller, Danny Thomas, Roy Rogers, Red Skelton, Mickey Rooney, Gloria DeHaven, Rip Taylor, Jack Benny and the list goes on. Our alumni boasts, Garland, Sinatra, Merman, Jolson . . .well, you get the picture.

We make sure The Rockettes don't have to be let out to pasture as long as they can kick and that Ice Shows launder performers' costumes every day. We have health insurance and a sick and relief plan for our members. Sorry if it sounds like bragging, but it really is. I'm happy and delighted to have served AGVA for the past 15 years as its president, but on this day I am especially proud of all those people who do the real work. Our board of directors, of course, but especially the dedicated staff on the west and east coast. . . . who really care about and serve our members. And, there is one person especially, who has served as both my vice president and our treasurer who has been the heart, soul and conscience of our union for as long as I can remember. Her name is Frances Gaar.

To Fran and to everybody involved in AGVA and the union movement around the world, happy holiday. I'm off to master "Beatsville", but I'd rather be having a hamburger and potato salad with you.

Love, Rod

RM First published 9/7/98

Here is another of my Rod Mckuen poems to mark the occasion:

PARADING THE COLORS
Red should not always stand for blood
not even that spilled by our fathers
and our sons
in the great parade of wars with numbers
one.
two.
Three.
Red is a sunset color
a Painted Desert dye
the color of the Arizona plains
and at certain times, the West Virginia sky.

Pride and purity may use the color white.
But snow-topped Colorado mountains,
ice across the Great Lakes in December
and Alaska every day of winter time
claimed the color first.
Not to mention that long strand of sandy Utah
and every Massachusetts/California beach.

So many uniforms are blue
that we forget the Truckee and the Mississippi
blue sky ocean to ocean,
blue ocean sky to sky.
Atlantic and Pacific have always been not green
but blue.

I know my history lesson,
I learned it well
that this nation to become a nation
ran forward into battle shouting freedom!
And often bore the tattered tri-color
home again
for men to mend
and start another battle new.

I am aware
that flagmakers make new fortunes
every Veterans/Decoration Day,
and broken bodies bathed in canvas
and the stars and stripes
have slid off ten thousand ships
maybe twenty thousand more,
to rest upon the bottom of the mother sea.
Excelsior at Iwo Jima.
Bully at Bull Run.
A step for man and mankind
murmured on the moon.
Peace with honor . . . somewhere.

Mothers of dead sons have pride. Me too.
But I would rather paint my colors
on a bright balloon -
children then would wave at me
and chase my shadow.

Old men who sit at tables making wars
don't do so in my name again.
It has taken me two hundred years
to come down to this place.
I have earned the right to see red, white, and blue
not on a battered standard borne in battle
but on my brother's face.

I love my flag..
To me it stands for love
kindness even to my enemy
and most of all, for brotherhood.
- from "The Power Bright & Shining", 1986

Smiles, Sharon

I came across this quote from Dale Carnegie: "Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have. It depends solely upon what you think." Truer words were never spoken. I've been very happy this weekend. WE have family visiting and it was so nice to have sisters-in-law to shop with and a mother-in-law to give hugs. My brother-in-law made the best gumbo I've ever eaten. (Even beat out my dear old mother's recipe). Billy enjoyed himself so much and I love to see him happy. So I hope happiness for each of you this week. Please be careful on the roadways. Smiles, Sharon

I'm in one of those moods tonight. Those familiar with Leonard Cohen, he was a genius. If Kris Krisstofferson and Tom Waits had a son he might sound like this man. My favorites are: Hallelujah, Take This Longing, A Thousand Kisses Deep, and of course, The Nightingale.
There is no CD with all of those songs on it...darn it! His lyrics are beautiful, haunting, some say too sad...I say I like them. Look him up on Amazon or your favorite music site and give him a listen.
It's very late, or very early. Either way, I need some sleep. Smiles, Sharon Oh yes, he has a book of poetry that I just ordered called BEAUTIFUL LOSERS

If I've posted this before, please forgive me. Edna St. Vincent Millay is someone that I could read every day and never tire of at all. I know several people that this poem touches, one whose memory of a man in a flannel shirt keeps her awake, and another with thoughts of one in military uniform. For them, and others, here it is:
THE PHILOSOPHER

And what are you that wanting you,
I should be kept awake
as many nights as there are days
with weeping for your sake?
And what are you that missing you,
as many days as crawl
I should be listening to the wind
and looking at the wall?
I know a man that's a braver man
and twenty men as kind.
And what are you, that you should be
the one man in my mind?
Yet women's ways are witless ways,
as any sage will tell...
And what am I, that I should love
so wisely and so well?

I hope all of you have a great weekend. Oh, Valanne, please go to your favorite blogs on the right side and right click mine, then refresh, or erase altogether and add me later when you look me back up. I'm hoping that will take away the pink world that only you still seem to have of my blog. You will love the Sedona picture.
Smiles, Sharon