Holy Days

Ah, Labor Day! So rich with memories! How often I remember those happy days of childhood, when we reveled so innocently in all the many traditional festivities of this time-honored holiday. Who among us will ever forget the joyful times we spent playing Scrub the Rusty Lunch Bucket? And what gay times we had frolicking about at the traditional Dig Ditch, Lay Pipes. Remember Burn the Straw Boss? Good times, good times.

And the music, the songs! Gathered round the concertina, gaily bellowing out the old favorites. Oh! Remember this one?

     Come the revolution
            we will bring the Bankers low,
     Slay the Monied Interests
            and bust the Trusts, ho ho.

Or how about:

     Look to your soul, Rockefeller!
     Hell is at the door, Carnegie!
     Yer money may be green but yer yeller,
     And yer doomed, no that ain’t hard to see!

Or:

     Gompers, stompers,
            wobbly grange,
     Debsie websie,
            passing strange.

Sends chills down your spine, doesn’t it.

Or is this May Day? I get them confused. Memorial Day? Arbor Day? Groundhog Day? National Petroleum Day (August 27 -- my Birth Day!)? Golly. How many days are there in a year? Like, a hundred or a million or something. They should number them.

Well, actually, they do want to number one of them. There’s talk, it seems, of a Nine Eleven Day. No. If Pearl Harbor didn’t make it, Moslem Terrorist Day sure doesn’t. No Hitler Day, no Osama Day. If the war we took seriously doesn't get a Day, then this piddling police action sure doesn't.

Because, what do these Days mean? What do they become? Christmas Present Day and Easter Egg Day. Turkey Day and Fire Cracker Day. What we’re talking about is Long Weekend Day. Refrain From Labor Day. A holiday that isn’t a holy day is Day Off Day. Which is fine, if that’s the point. But the idea that a feeling can be institutionalized and solemnified by the calendar is naïve. The sitcom cliché is that husbands forget anniversaries. I guess it’s not a day off.

Constancy of memory is guided but not ensured by days of commemoration. It is the steadfastness of one’s own heart that solemnifies a day. Every day is the Lord’s day. It is not times and seasons, it’s a fundamental seriousness of purpose and character that imbues and endows significance.

So it’s strange that the Lefties have censored out of existence the fall of the Towers. It’s not that it’s too painful, or too soon. It’s that it should be forgotten -- they seem to think. No. But contrariwise, we do not need the images, any more than the anniversary or the holiday. It is carried like a tear in a vial, within our souls. It replays itself across the screen of our mind’s eye, not as a sight of horror, but as a nutrient to our bones. We become harder, in remembering.

Two Fox journalists ransomed their lives by pretending to convert to islam(ism). No finger of blame is to be pointed at them. They have wives, and perhaps little children. What we must learn from this, is the necessity of remembering. The Moslem Terrorist Islamists, the Exploding Mohammads, would destroy our buildings, our lives, and our souls. What is the name of the Day we will reserve for thinking about this? What will its ceremonies be? To me, it would have something do to with boots and bullets. But some of us have sons right now who are living that day, everyday. Survival Day. Freedom Day. Not Selling Your Soul Day. War In Iraq Day.


J