The Weekend

What makes one weekend better than another?

I don't mean those special weekends that include a quick trip to a new place for forty-eight hours of fun! I am talking about those regular old weekends when you leave the plant after five and commute home and start that magical time-off.

What makes one weekend better than another?

Most people don't appreciate that Americans used to work six or seven days a week, ten or twelve hours a day, with time-off only to go to church, and that labor unions changed all that in the early part of the last century. Before the labor movement, people didn't work seventy or eighty hours a week because they loved their job or wanted to excel or were bucking for a promotion; they did it because it was required. There was no overtime pay, there was no real advancement from labor force to management, dedication was not rewarded. You were born rich or poor and that was pretty much your lot in life.

The labor movement changed that. The labor movement created that ladder from abject poverty to working class to middle class to upper class to wealthy. The labor movement made it possible for the children of immigrants to become CEOs!

Prior to men risking everything to make the world a better place, men who were marginalized or killed or imprisoned to make workplaces safer and more equitable, there was no weekend. That's right! The weekend was invented by the labor movement. So next time you're enjoying your time off and you want to complain about unions, remember that it was labor unions who made the workplace, YOUR workplace, all workplaces, safer and better and more profitable for YOU! How can dismantling unions be good for America?

So, you have a weekend. Every week you get one, and that is the thrust of my blog today. What makes one weekend better than another? Again, I am not talking about special weekends or long weekends, just a regular old weekend like the one just past. How did your weekend go?

Mine was spectacular, and I don't know why! It didn't seem any different from any other weekend while it was happening.

I got home a little late Friday night, had dinner with Mrs. Mac, played Age of Mythology online, watched a little television, and went to bed. Nothing special, but I awoke feeling refreshed, rejuvenated, and excited about the day ahead.

On Saturday, I published my weekly OMG!™ post. Mrs. Mac and I continued unpacking boxes from our recent move and setting-up the house and decorating a bit. I watched Arsenal beat Wolverhampton in an away match on television. Then I went to the grocery store and the butcher and the green grocer. When I got home I made meatballs and sausages and a big pot of tomato sauce, and I baked a meatloaf. After dinner we took the subway into New York for a birthday party and was home by eleven feeling great and having had a fun day.

Sunday morning I awoke and made pancakes and eggs, continued unpacking some more, did some housework, watched Manchester City draw with Birmingham, then went to Home De(s)pot for rugs and tools and supplies and those sundry items always lacking after a move, then did more housework, baked a veal parmigiana and served dinner, chatted online with some friends and my niece, then answered email and played another round of computer games and went to bed.

Now it is Monday and I feel like I have had the best weekend ever! I wonder why?

Did you have a good weekend?

Peace.