Labor Day

[Azrael]

Solidarity Takes the Whole Works

 

[Azrael]

 

[garrow]

Signed into law in 1894 by Grover Cleveland, amidst crushing the Pullman Strike....

 

[Deskgrunt50]

#UnionStrong

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

Solidarity Takes the Whole Works

View attachment 16340

Hey, how did they know it was WWI in 1918?

 

[Slacker]

Hey, how did they know it was WWI in 1918?

It was on the union website.

 

[qtlaw]

I’m proud to say I’m the product of two longtime union members. I even went to law school to be a union side labor lawyer. (Did it for a couple of years but didn’t like my supervisor.) I still revere Samuel Gompers and the Weeblies.

 

[Typist Clerk]

Hey, how did they know it was WWI in 1918?

The logo means IWW, Industrial Workers of the World.

 

[Liut]

Walter Reuther should be celebrated. Henry Ford? Less so.

 

[Starman]

Let's take a walk

The annual Labor Day Bridge Walk, which had its largest turnout in 18 years this year, usually sets out from this staging area at the north end of the bridge.

 

[I Should Coco]

That's a great Labor Day event -- I participated in one in the late 1990s. It's really cool when an ore-toting freighter passes underneath as you're walking across the bridge.

 

[Starman]

Yeah, and you can look down through the transparent metal grate roadway to see the ships below...

 

[Starman]

That's a great Labor Day event -- I participated in one in the late 1990s. It's really cool when an ore-toting freighter passes underneath as you're walking across the bridge.

I walked it in 1966, a week short of my 8th birthday. My dad maneuvered to get a prime camping space at Straits State Park, a half mile east of the bridge. We got up at 5:30, mom and dad had great smelling coffee off the Coleman stove. I was still on hot chocolate.

It was chilly and rainy as we walked over to the starting point near the toll gates. The bridge lights were still on, glowing in the haze. George Romney was leading the way; he arrived in a convoy of a half dozen cop cars. I don't remember if snotty teen Mitt was anywhere to be seen and wouldn't have cared anyway. Maybe he was busy strapping his dog to the roof of his car.

We took off at 6:45 am about 15 minutes after the huge opening surge and started the long climb. I was on my own, but my sister just turned 5 got to ride in a stroller pushed mostly by dad. We certainly didn't threaten any speed records, we chugged across in about three hours, averaging a brisk 1.7 mph. Pushing the stroller it probably wasn't a bad pace.

By about the time we passed the north anchorage and moved onto the suspended sections under the cables, the rain had quit and the sun was breaking through. Pretty much sunny the remaining two miles downhill to Mackinaw City; I actually picked up a little glow of a sunburn.

As soon as we hit the ground in Mackinaw City, we made a quick sprint for the porta potties (then as now, there were none on the bridge), then we lined up for buses to take us back to St Ignace. (They did that at the time, I understand they don't now. They used to draft dozens of school buses from school districts within 50 miles or so to truck the walkers back.)

Waiting for the buses, it started to sprinkle again and by the time our bus was moving it was pouring. By the time we were crossing the bridge the remaining walkers (by this time there weren't many) were drenched.

All the way back, the whole bus was singing "Yellow Submarine," which was at the moment a huge hit on the radio. Nobody knew the words other than the chorus because literally it had only come out like 3 weeks before. (Actually I take that back, the lyrics are pretty simple -- it wasn't "Subterranean Homesick Blues" -- and it was on the radio about every 90 minutes, so people really did know the verses.)
We got back to our tent camper about noon and gathered around the cozy Coleman stove.

Everybody crashed out for about a three hour nap and then we had to pack up the whole shebang by late afternoon for what should have been a 4-hour drive home (but ended up being about 5 1/2 after a massive traffic jam at the Clare intersection). We finally stumbled home about 10:15 pm, with school and work for everybody the next morning.

 

[Starman]

Ahh, top 40 radio of the day

1 5 SUNSHINE SUPERMAN –•– Donovan (Epic)-6 (1 week at #1) (1)
2 1 SUMMER IN THE CITY –•– The Lovin’ Spoonful (Kama Sutra)-8 (1)
3 3 SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER –•– The Happenings (B.T. Puppy)-9 (3)
4 7 YOU CAN’T HURRY LOVE –•– The Supremes (Motown)-4 (4)
5 8 YELLOW SUBMARINE –•– The Beatles (Capitol)-3 (5)
6 2 SUNNY –•– Bobby Hebb (Philips)-11 (2)
7 15 LAND OF 1000 DANCES –•– Wilson Pickett (Atlantic)-6 (7)
8 12 WORKING IN THE COAL MINE –•– Lee Dorsey (Amy)-7 (8)
9 11 BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND –•– Stevie Wonder (Tamla)-7 (9)
10 10 SUMMERTIME –•– Billy Stewart (Chess)-8 (10)

 

[micropolitan guy]

Where are they building the new bridge to Windsor?

 

[Starman]

Where are they building the new bridge to Windsor?

It's going up this summer. Most of the towers and cables are up. It's a cable stayed bridge so the construction procedures are different from a suspension bridge, although they look somewhat similar.

They're expecting it to open in Spring 25.

 

[Azrael]

Harlan County, USA was on TCM the other night.

Tremendous documentary by Barbara Kopple.

 

[maumann]

My brothers are I sang the crap out of "Yellow Submarine" in Houston that fall. And a catchy Herman's Hermits song that only had one verse.

 

[swingline]

Same as the first.

 

[Starman]

It was definitely a trip singing a song, "now we live beneath the waves, in our yellow submarine," in a yellow school bus in a rainy windstorm 150 feet above the Straits of Mackinac, water depth 250 feet at mid span.

:eek::eek::eek: