Americans may not know that most of the rest of the world observes Labor Day on May 1. Why don't we? Simple answer: it's a goddamn Commie holiday. Complex answer: We actually had our own first, and just because most of the rest of the world does something doesn't mean we have to.

Ironically, the date May 1 has its roots in the United States. A bunch of labor organizers back in the 1880s declared that they would fight to institute the eight-hour day by May 1, 1886. On that day there was a demonstration in Chicago that turned into the Haymarket Riot when some anarchist threw a bomb. The Second International took up the idea in 1890 and called for May 1 to become the international labor movement day, and over the years various Marxist groups adopted it as their holiday. To my knowledge, and I'm too lazy to look it up, May 1 didn't become an official holiday until much later in most of Europe.

However, the US union the Knights of Labor had already established in 1887 that the first Monday in September would be their day of celebration, and that's what caught on in the US. Labor Day in September became a Federal holiday in 1894.

That is, American Labor Day was established long before the May 1 date became a holiday in most places.  Interestingly enough, May 1 was established as a national holiday in Germany in 1933 by the Nazis.

Why didn't the Americans change? Well, first, why should they, it's their country and they can celebrate holidays whenever they want, and second, the Second International was never overly influential or popular on the west side of the North Atlantic.

I remember when I first came over here back in '87 that May 1 was celebrated much more avidly back then than it is now. They used to have big demos and marches, and now there's barely anything, a few thousand union loyalists and Trots and the like. Everyone just enjoys the day off work and continues capitalist consumption as usual, which is of course the way things should be.

I imagine the change has something to do with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of their big May Day parades, and the end of Soviet subsidies to Western Communist parties, which undoubtedly played hell with the budgets of a lot of lefty groups.

We took advantage of the long weekend to go out to my wife's village, Vallfogona de Riucorb, where the weather was of course wonderful. The country up there on the border between Tarragona and Lerida provinces is kind of rough and arid, and the village is in a valley that cuts some 100 meters into the plains above it. They cultivate wheat and barley on the plains, but down around the village, where the sides of the valley are terraced, they grow vines for wine production (Vallfogona is in the prestigious Costers del Segre wine district) and olive and almond trees, along with the occasional wheatfield.

So the sun is out, the fields are green, the almonds are blooming either white or pink, the wildflowers (most notably poppies) are out, and the lambs at the sheep pen uphill from the village are a month old or so. May and June will be beautiful--and then come July, August, and September, which are hot and stinky and nasty in Barcelona. Out in Vallfogona, though, it's hot but dry during the day and nice and cool in the evening. It's hard to beat Spain in the spring.