I am taking Labor Day off this year and hope everyone else is having a great day out there enjoying themselves....

I have to say, President Joe Biden has indeed been the best president Unions and Labor have had in a very long time -- at least since F.D.R. was around. I fully expect Kamala Harris to continue this proud tradition (if she gets the chance).

But as I note, this column wasn't about politics at all. It's just a very personal "thank you" to everyone who got us through some very dark days. It was written at the absolute depths of the COVID pandemic, when going outside or even getting the mail was a very scary thought. But some of us had to do it, each and every day, so that life didn't completely grind to an absolute halt. So today I just wanted to remind everyone of the sacrifices that some brave and mostly-overlooked workers made for us all.

Lest we forget....

Originally published September 7, 2020

I'm mostly taking today off, so this won't be a column about politics. It won't even be a full column, for that matter.

I'm taking the time off in order to get caught up on a few projects around the house, if truth be told. That's right -- I will be laboring on Labor Day. Now, I do realize that delving into the mysteries of under-sink plumbing and towel rack maintenance don't really qualify for the intended purpose of the holiday, so I decided to write this to comment about how important laborers are to the country right now.

It took a pandemic for many people to even notice how essential some jobs are. Who among us ever gave a single thought for the workers who produce toilet paper before this year? And yet suddenly they were at the forefront of the fight against the coronavirus (mostly due to rampant panic-buying for no particular reason). The only times I've ever stood in a long line at 6:00 A.M. previously, it was to buy concert tickets when they went on sale. Doing so to get the limited number of toilet paper packages the grocery store released each day was indeed a novel experience, that's for sure.

There's another category -- who ever paid all that much attention to the people at those grocery stores who stock the shelves each day so we can all buy the food and sundries necessary for normal life? I for one gained a new appreciation of the risks these people have been running all year long just to allow me to shop. Who ever thought grocery workers would be called the frontlines of a crisis and get danger bonuses for showing up for work? They fully deserved every dollar of it, that's for sure.

Seeing commerce come to a screeching halt except for essential businesses meant categorizing all the places we shop. What is an "essential" service to one person is deemed frivolous by others, and likely vice versa. These battles are still playing out (just ask Nancy Pelosi) for all kinds of businesses. In the depths of the shutdown this spring, I did get some work done on the car, which reminded me that auto mechanics are indeed pretty essential to modern life.

These are just a few examples of many that we've all experienced. I've taken to calling 2020 the "lost year" because until a safe and effective vaccine is readily available to all, the public mindset will still be locked in crisis mode. No return to full normalcy is going to be possible until vaccinations are widespread and proven to work. Until we reach that point, life will continue on a wartime footing as we all try to fight off the deadly pandemic.

Which is why today I am incredibly thankful for all those on the frontlines of this fight. Normally, when you speak of "war" and "frontlines" you think of soldiers or perhaps first responders (police, firefighters, doctors, and E.M.T.s). Here in California, firefighters are still at the top of everyone's thankfulness list right now, I should in all fairness mention. But in a pandemic economy, the definition of frontline workers has been expanded to include everyone from farm to table involved in food production -- which most definitely includes processing facilities, truckers, and grocery store workers -- as well as all kinds of other jobs, from gas station attendants to liquor store clerks.

My own work routine has not changed one iota, I should admit. I work from home. I sit at my computer and type. I read news online. In other words, no change at all from before. However, tens of millions of workers have had to create home offices from scratch and learn how to telecommute. My wife is one of them. Her workday has been completely changed and will not return to normal for months. Millions of others are going through exactly what she is.

But millions of other workers don't even have this option, and it is those that I am most thankful for this Labor Day. You can't telecommute if you stock grocery store shelves. You can't work from home if you're a mail carrier. Or if you work in a cotton swab factory. You don't have the option to radically adjust your worklife if you work with your hands or if your physical presence is otherwise necessary to do your job. All of these people are the laborers I am praising today, because their selfless efforts have kept at least some aspects of life from spiralling out of control. Even the toilet paper panic died down pretty quickly, due to one previously little-noticed sector of the economy rising to the challenge.

So I hope everyone has a happy Labor Day no matter what you do with your holiday today. And I hope everyone joins with me in offering up some thanks to the laborers out there who -- until this year -- worked in relative obscurity, with the fruits of their labor being completely taken for granted by the public. Call it a small silver lining to the pandemic, because if this year has taught us anything, it is that a whole lot of labor has to take place (with a whole lot of laborers running daily risks) for modern life to happen on any scale. Some frontline jobs are more prominent than others, but we really need them all, from the doctors and ambulance drivers to the meatpackers and convenience store clerks. All of them deserve equal thanks, no matter how obscure their job was before the crisis hit.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant