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The U.S. observance of Labor Day had its first formal stirrings in 1887, when Oregon became the first state to make Labor Day a darn tootin', sure-as-shootin' public holiday. They're nothing if not progressive in Oregon, which is also where the first one-way streets in a U.S. city were laid out, as well as being the (highly generalized) location of the first facility to successfully breed harbor seals in captivity.

In March of 1977, Marvel Comics launched a patriotic new superhero named Spirit of '76. Which feels like a pretty big missed opportunity when you think about it. What, the Marvel Comic guys didn't know the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence was coming up? The character's whole shtick is how patriotic and All-American he is. You couldn't have gotten your stuff together a few months sooner, and had Spirit of '76 make his debut in, oh, 1976?

The IT Insights blog is taking the day off, in honor of the U.S. observance of Memorial Day. We will be back on Wednesday, May 30. Until then ...

It's almost summer. Yeah, don't give us all of that nitpicky mumbo-jumbo about how some random day in June is technically the "first day" of summer. You can already purchase watermelon at the grocery store. You can already see big blockbuster movies like Avengers: Infinity War and Deadpool 2 in theaters. And teachers everywhere are basically just hanging in there and running out the clock.

It's kind of a funny time to be talking about wrapping things up, finishing them off, writing "The End," moving on, bidding adieu, lighting a match and walking away, and so forth. We just barely kicked off 2018, after all. The "New Year" smell — sort of like the much-loved "new car" smell — hasn't even worn off, yet. Come on, now. Is anybody really in an "all good things must end" frame of mind?