Labor Day: In praise of quiet competence

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I have a confession: I’ve never truly celebrated Labor Day. Oh, I’ve gone up to the North Shore for the long weekend and I’ve certainly attended the State Fair on Minnesota’s last unofficial day of summer, but I’ve never actually honored the laborers who make my life so easy. I would now like to make amends for this unsightly blemish on my soul.

Let me begin by acknowledging I can’t possibly thank all the workers whose efforts allow me to go about my business. For starters, though, there are the utility workers who diligently worked to restore power to many of our homes and apartments after last week’s powerful storms, as well as the countless city and county employees who feverishly toiled to clear our streets of fallen trees.

Then there are the waste collectors who not only dispatch my trash, compost and recycling every week but selflessly fetch my bins on those few occasions — usually in the frigid depths of January — when I forget to haul them to the street the night before.

Next, there is the friendly, knowledgeable and wise local hardware store owner who translates my vague “rubber doohickey” into the precise part necessary to allow my wife to bring our toilet back into proper working order. (I am hopelessly incompetent when it comes to fixing mechanical things.)

At the grocery store, I marvel at the young stockers who can tell me exactly where to find that obscure dinner ingredient. “It’s on Aisle 7, two-thirds of the way down on the left bottom shelf, right next to the pickles.”

The older checkout clerk is equally competent. If cash were still king, I know she could provide me with the exact change without consulting the register; yet since that skill is now a dying art form, I remain grateful she has retained the know-how to properly pack my groceries such that the weight is evenly distributed across all of the bags and my bread and eggs are properly protected.

Then, of course, there are the waiters and waitresses who, while juggling multiple tables, take my order without use of pen or paper and not only get every item right, they somehow magically keep my coffee cup filled without me ever noticing how they pull off the trick.

These superhuman skills are matched by the dental hygienist who gently scrapes the plaque from my teeth without poking my gums while simultaneously engaging me in an engrossing conversation. This is in spite of the fact that my mouth is wide open, full of dental implements and I am incapable of speaking. The visit is over in no time.

I could go on but let me end with a true story. In the winter of 2023, my wife and I were at a lodge on the Gunflint Trail when the tractor it uses to groom the cross-country ski trails plunged into a frozen lake.

The proprietors sought an exemption from the DNR to cut down some trees so a semitrailer truck could pull the massive vehicle out of the lake. The request was denied. They also explored flying in a military-grade helicopter to lift it out. This option was ridiculously expensive. Next, they consulted a handful of professional engineering firms specializing in such complex procedures. All declined saying it could not be done.

Desperate, the owners reached out to Ellis Towing, a modest sized company in Bemidji. The owner drove over to the Gunflint Trail and assessed the situation. The next day, he and three of his fellow workers arrived on the scene. For the next few days these unsung laborers worked day and night to rig a makeshift flotation device. They then got into the frigid waters in wetsuits, perilously positioned the floating pontoon cylinders in the ice and their tow truck atop buckling ice and slowly but steadily pulled the tractor to safety.

These heroic laborers did all of this with no recognition and for a fee that could not possibly offer proper compensation for such a dangerous and difficult endeavor.

So this Labor Day, I sincerely want to thank all the laborers who make my life — and the lives of so many others — better. I appreciate your hands and minds, but I love your hearts.

Jack Uldrich lives in Minneapolis.