By Linda Blackford | Editor
It’s Labor Day, a holiday first adopted nationally in 1894, and one that has ever since honored the American worker and all they have attained. (Not clear what will happen to Labor Day if AI takes away all our jobs.)
You probably have better things to do than read this newsletter, but I hope not, because we have two treats for you. One is a story from contributor Jack Brammer, a tale of resilience out of Eastern Kentucky. The other, a contemplation of American work and culture through the eyes of the recently departed Kentucky icon, Wendell Berry. Enjoy.
A small but strong pine tree grew out of a railroad trestle in Whitesburg, Ky. Two composers wrote a song about it that continues to reverberate. (Photo provided)
By Jack Brammer
The small, solitary, scrawny, pine tree grew out of an abandoned, rotting wooden train trestle tie in Whitesburg. It eventually produced something much larger.
Wendell Berry with Nip and Jed, Lane’s Landing Farm, Henry County, KY 2012. (Photo by Guy Mendes)
COMMENTARY
By Jason Bailey
Throughout his life, Kentucky writer Wendell Berry described death not as an end, but as a stage in a cycle of renewal. Those who die return in body to the earth and endure in the memory of those who loved them. In “Three Elegaic Poems,” dedicated to his dying grandfather, Berry says the old man is “set free in our remembering.” “Grown brighter than vision. . . he’s hidden among all that is, and cannot be lost.”
IN CASE YOU MISSED ITLabor unions are growing, bu
Thanks so much for reading Morning Lantern. Did you know our weekend digest is also free? Sign up here. And if you enjoyed today’s edition, please forward to a friend. Increasing our readership helps us cover more news.