~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
September 5, 2011

★~ Today’s Quote: Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.  ~Ovid

★~Labor Day:

A yearly, national acknowledgement of the contributions American workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. This holiday was first celebrated in 1882 in New York City as a “workingman’s holiday,” complete with a parade of 10,000 workers. Over the next 12 years, Labor Day celebrations spread through half the country. By 1894, Congress passed an act that made Labor Day a legal holiday. Canada also celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday in September. In most other countries, Labor Day is observed May 1. Today, many Americans view Labor Day as the unofficial end to summer.

★~Cheese Pizza Day:

Cheese pizza Is good any day of the year but a rather Odd choice for Labor day when most people eat barbecue type food. Cheese Pizza appetizers might be a good compromise and addition to your barbecue  or If it raining where you are and your plans to barbecue have been foiled you could stay inside and make a cheese pizza! Here’s a bunch of cheese pizza recipes, from Jeff Varasano, MealsMatter, MyRecipes, RecipeZaar, Wolfgang Puck, Emeril, and Rachael Ray.  if you can’t barbecue, and you don’t want to labor in the kitchen, just call your favorite pizza joint and call it DONE.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1958 – Doctor Zhivago, the novel by Russian author Boris Pasternak, was published in the United States for the first time. Doctor Zhivago won Pasternak the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958.

♥~ 1960 – Cassius Clay of Louisville, KY won the gold medal in light heavyweight boxing at the Olympic Games in Rome, Italy. Clay would later change his name to Muhammad Ali and become one of the great boxing champions in the world. In 1996, at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, GA, Muhammad Ali was given the honor of lighting the Olympic flame.

♥~ 1964 – The Animals’ House of the Rising Sun made it to #1. It stayed at the top until it was replaced three weeks later by Roy Orbison’s Oh, Pretty Woman. Orbison’s smash was just entering the pop charts on this day for a 14-week run.

♥~ 1998 – Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing debuted at #1 on U.S. music charts. The song, from the movie, Armageddon, was the first single by Aerosmith to reach number one. It stayed at the top through the entire month of September.

★~ Born Today:

♥~ 1847 – Jesse James:  Western legend and bandit Jesse Woodson James criminal exploits were glorified and romanticized by writers for Eastern readers looking for stories of Western  adventure and heroism. After the Civil War, James and his brother, Frank, formed a group of eight outlaws who robbed banks, stagecoaches and stores. In 1873 the James gang began holding up trains. The original James gang was put out of business Sept 7, 1876, while attempting to rob a bank at Northfield, MN. Every member of the gang except for the James brothers was killed or captured. The brothers formed a new gang and resumed their criminal careers in 1879. Two years later, the governor of Missouri offered a $10,000 reward for their capture, dead or alive. On Apr 3, 1882, at St. Joseph, MO, Robert Ford, a member of the gang, shot 34-year-old Jesse in the back of the head and claimed the reward.

♥~ 1902- Darryl Zanuck: movie producer, cofounder of Twentieth Century Studios, which later merged with Fox. His film credits include The Jazz Singer (the first full-length sound picture), Forever Amber, The Snake Pit and The Grapes of Wrath. Died Dec 21, 1979

♥~1912 – John Cage: Avant-garde American composer. He pioneered the experimental music and performance art schools. He used nontraditional instruments such as flowerpots and cowbells in innovative situations, such as performances governed by chance, in which the I Ching was consulted to determine the direction of the performance. In 1978 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1982 was awarded France’s highest honor for cultural contributions, Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He died Aug 12, 1992, at New York, NY.

♥~ 1929 – Bob Newhart actor, comedian: The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart; LP: The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart

♥~ 1940 – Raquel Welch (Jo Raquel Tejada) actress: Tainted Blood, The Four Musketeers, Woman of the Year, Bandolero!, Mother, Jugs and Speed, Myra Breckenridge, Fantastic Voyage, Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult

♥~ 1950 – Cathy Guisewite cartoonist: Cathy

★~ Did You Know: Source: U.S. Census Bureau

♥~ 153.2 million: The number of people, 16 and older, who makes up the nation’s labor force as of July, 2011.

♥~ 5.9 million: The number of people who work from home.

♥~ 84.7%: The percentage of full-time workers 18 to 64 covered by health insurance during all or part of 2009.

♥~ 26.2 million: The number of female workers 16 and older in management, professional and related occupations. Among male workers, 16 and older, 24.0 million were employed in management, professional and related occupations.

♥~ 16.5 million: The number of commuters who leave for work between midnight and 5:59 a.m. They represent 12.4 percent of all commuters.

♥~ 76.1%: The percentage of workers who drive alone to work. Another 10.0 percent carpool and 5.0 percent take public transportation (excluding taxicabs).

♥~ 25.1 minutes: The average time it takes people in the nation to commute to work. New York and Maryland had the most time-consuming commutes, averaging 31.4 and 31.3 minutes. (They are not significantly different from each another.)

♥~ 3.2 million: The number of workers who face extreme commutes to work of 90 or more minutes each day.

♥~ First Waffle House opens on Labor Day. In 1955, in Avondale Estates, Georgia, the very first Waffle House opened it’s doors to the public. 25 states and 50 years later, Waffle House now counts over 1500 establishments. Yay waffles!

♥~ Labor Day has been traditionally the unofficial “pack up the whites” border, and was often considered a fashion faux pas, if worn post-Labor Day. This tradition has been steadily decreasing over the past decade(s), and is often now just remembered as the “something that once was.”

♥~ Unofficial NFL season kickoff: 99.44 percent of the time, the NFL plays it’s first official season game the Thursday after Labor Day.

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Have a wonderful Labor Free Monday…and remember be mindful out there!

♥

Katybeth