We hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. We know everyone here at The Signpost did. We have worked hard these first two weeks of school to make the paper have great content and great art. We have also been working hard to push our online content and become more of a multimedia-based Weber State University news resource.

After all this hard work for these first two weeks, we deserved a three-day weekend, which Labor Day allows us. But apart from that, a lot of us might wonder what the point of Labor Day is. To this we say — does it really need any other point?

There are, of course, the historical reasons for Labor Day, whether or not everyone thinks they warrant a national holiday.  According to Jim Brogan’s Monday article in The Post Chronicle, Labor Day was first proposed by the American Federation of Labor’s Peter J. McGuire in May 1882, to celebrate the American laborers on whose backs the country was built, and, more specifically, the social and economic progress they helped foster for the United States.

But we all know the real reasons we have Labor Day (which should really be called Labor-Free Day) are that we as Americans cannot work for so long without a break, everyone in this nation hates Mondays, and we wanted a legitimate reason to have a good tasty barbecue (not that we really need an excuse for that).

First of all, the last time we had a national holiday was the Fourth of July. That was two months ago. Here in Utah, we did get an extra day off on July 24, but still, that was ages ago. So, we have been working faithfully for two months, five days a week. If we had to do that all the time, we would all go stir-crazy. We are a lazy people; therefore, working that hard is not our strong suit. We needed the break.

Second of all, Monday is the worst day of the week. We have to get over the fun weekend and get back to work. Yesterday, with no work and no school, was probably the best Monday most people have had in weeks. If we have to make up a ridiculous random holiday with no point to just to take a Monday off every now and then, let’s do it.

Thirdly, Americans like to party. A party usually consists of good food (which we have plenty of). The best type of party in the summer is a good ol’-fashioned barbecue. Labor Day weekend is the official last hurrah for summer. There is no better way to send summer on its way than with a barbecue. Labor Day is just another excuse to not let go of summer completely just yet.

These are our reasons for Labor Day, but some people, like President Barack Obama, say otherwise. Obama tweeted this on his Twitter page just yesterday: “Today we celebrate the hard-working folks across America who show time and again there’s nothing this country can’t do. Happy Labor Day.” He agrees that Labor Day is a time to take work off. He also has stated that it’s a reward for all our hard work and proving we straight-up rock.

Labor Day weekend is a great time to relax. We here at The Signpost hope all students and faculty enjoyed their break. Hopefully, they spent the weekend catching up on laundry or homework or graded assignments. Hopefully they also did do something fun like watch college football, barbecue it up, or go camping. Any way it was spent, we hope it was a good one.