Queens Offers Summer Delights For All

This coming Monday we celebrate a holiday that Samuel Gompers, founder and president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), noted as unique. Labor Day does not celebrate one person's birth or death, the beginning or end of a war or even a national day of privately or publicly expressed appreciation for blessings received. Instead, Labor Day is an annual nationwide tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well being of this country.

This year, New Yorkers, especially, have reason to salute their fellow workers. For as

long as 10 days, sometimes even after the

Northwest Queens blackout of 2006 was supposedly over, Con Edison crews and their colleagues from other states strove mightily to turn the lights-and the air conditioners

and the fans and the refrigerators- back on. Sporadic outages have hit other parts of the city and in each case the response from the work crews who go down in the manholes or climb the poles has been the same. They get there as soon as they can and they fix the problem as fast as possible.

The situation has been the same with other workers without whom this city could not function. Queens had the highest number of deaths-14-during the recent heat wave. Each and every one of these deaths is a tragedy, but were it not for the paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians who staff ambulance services, the number might be still higher.

We could go on and on, but we know that each and every one of our readers could match us, story for story. The army of

unsung heroes who keep this city-and the state, and the country-up and running merely by going to work at their appointed day and hour never get the credit they deserve.

This coming Monday, we hope all our readers will take time out from their revels on the last official holiday of the summer of 2006 to salute their co-workers, many of whom will forego the holiday in order to remain at their desks, factory benches and laboratories, or who will spend the day in preparing for the days and weeks ahead. Without them, most of us wouldn't be here, or at any rate, surely wouldn't be as comfortable and contented as we are. We're honored to consider ourselves among them and we're proud to salute them on this Labor Day 2006.