Monday is a big national holiday in the United States, and a small holiday or two as well.

September 7th, like every first Monday in September, is the Labor Day. Just about all official is closed - schools, banks, state and federal government offices. In fact, all sorts of folks have the day off - with pay - in tribute to the labor movement and themselves as working people, and also to mark the casual end to the summer beach and swimming-pool season.

And Monday will be a type of National Lots of Other Things Day as well. Like each day of the year, special anniversaries, odd holidays, and birthdays - if you want to call them that - will be noted and celebrated.


Monday, for example, is the beginning of National Payroll Week - and getting paid is something that all the laborers celebrating Labor Day value highly. It is also the 95th anniversary of the New York City post office building on Eighth Avenue. That's important to the rest of the country because a famous saying was inscribed on that building. Freely translated from the olden Greek historian Herodotus, it reads, Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. It became the unofficial slogan of the U.S. Postal Service.

Monday is also marks the birth of the late rockabilly singer Buddy Holly in 1936, and the 11th anniversary of the beginning of Google, the Internet search-engine company. It's Grandma Moses Day, too! Anna Mary Grandma Moses was a famous primitive painter who did not pick up a brush until she was 78. She died at age 101 in December 13, 1961 and is remembered, at least by her fans, to this day on her birthday.


Every day is like that in America - a celebration of something, anywhere. The most fun this Labor Day might be found at the annual Great American Bathtub Race Front Street in Nome, Alaska.

Labels: Google, Google milestones, google updates, Grandma Moses, Labor