A Knuckle Sandwich on Idaho's Labor Day Grill

Would a knuckle sandwich be appropriate due to the often violent history of the labor movement? I didn't know my dad when he used to man picket lines, but I heard stories about him from old-timers. Big rigs would attempt to scatter the pickets. My dad would stand in place at the gate. He was an intimidating presence at 6 feet six inches tall. Drivers would finally stop at almost his nose when he wouldn't budge. Then other men would pull the driver from the cab and persuade him to leave.

For all the talk about a divided country, in many ways, it's more civil today. Among the old man's contemporaries were a lot of guys who had already worked as a unit and in far more hostile circumstances. Rarely did they face another army during a strike.

My experience of youth wasn't the same. When I was of working age, it seemed the managers took off Labor Day, and the guys who labored worked. My holiday meal was a ham sandwich I brought from home.

Most of my adult life has involved work in broadcasting. I was well past 50 when I worked my first year with all holidays away from the job. My experience has been the younger generation expects all the same perks from day one of employment. In my TV days, I hired a young reporter fresh out of college and explained she would be working weekends and holidays. On her first day at the office, she handed me a list of days he expected to take off, and explained, "I always spend Thanksgiving at my grandmother's home in Massachusetts". She was angry when I told her she did as a child, but now she had other obligations.

I probably won't think of her as I fire up a steak on Monday.