On labor day, I want to talk about the dignity of labor. I grew up in my father's hardware store. He bought the store while I was in junior high and I worked weekends and summers until I graduated from College and went looking for higher pay. My father treated everyone who came into his store with courtesy and respect, and his genuine warmth brought many customers into the store who would not have felt welcome at the mall.

Louie Siebenaler was a large man, always in greasy overalls, who came in with his short and thin son-in-law, Coy. Both were always covered in grease head to toe; hands, arms and faces filthy from dismantling old cars at the junk yard. Another friend Ted Reser was a blacksmith, with huge arms and hands, his overalls covered in the soot and coal from the forge. Ted had a particular pride in his muscular physique and believed that he appeared much younger than his age. He was in his late seventies when I knew him and he worked hours at the forge each day.

We have a fixation on appearances and look in all the wrong places to find cause for our pretense of dignity. We admire those with fine homes and cars while we overlook and ignore those who may have dirt under their fingernails. And yet, if a sense of dignity is earned, then I ask, "by whom?" If dignity is deserved, it might be best borne by those whose bodies bear the markings of their service and their labor.