Texas Gets Goat, Boston Gets Boat for Labor Day

From the traditional picnics to a not-so-traditional goat cook-off to the exhibition of an aircraft carrier in Massachusetts that drew 40,000, Americans celebrated their Labor Day weekend as President Reagan hailed the fact that a record number hold jobs.

In Brady, Tex., about 10,000 people saw a hometown cook take top honors in the 14th annual World Championship Barbecue Goat Cook-off Saturday.

Brady’s own Gene Matthews took home the $150 first prize in the goat cook-off while O. H. (Mac) McLendon of Waterboro, S. C., won the prize for the goat chef who traveled the greatest distance to compete.

40,000 People Gather

In Boston, more than 40,000 people gathered Sunday to see the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy, causing officials to cut the line off early.

The aircraft carrier, the largest non-nuclear-powered warship in the world, is in Boston for the Labor Day weekend to allow tourists to explore its flight deck and cavernous interior.

Democratic Rep. Louis Stokes’ traditional picnic in Cleveland didn’t get that many guests, but it got some important ones--notably Democratic presidential hopeful Jesse Jackson and Gov. Richard F. Celeste.

Only 6% Unemployed

President Reagan paid tribute to workers in a holiday statement Sunday and called on Americans to rejoice in the fact that more people than ever before hold jobs, with the unemployment rate at a decade-low 6%.

With more than 114 million people with jobs, Reagan said, “we can truly be grateful that God has blessed our nation with an abundance which has permitted us to produce a vast quantity of goods for people around the world.”

Reagan Lauds Workers

In his message, Reagan lauded the “labor, resourcefulness and devotion to family and country” of American workers who “have forged the freest, most prosperous nation the world has ever known.”

“In the pursuit of that American dream, every generation has proven anew the dignity of work and of working people.”

But the largest union in the AFL-CIO, in its own salute to labor, called for a national child care policy, saying that “work and family can go together if the child care needs of working parents are met.”

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents 1.1 million American workers, called for federal legislation to correct the “inadequate or stopgap child care” that has victimized “millions of working parents and their children.”

The union said only 3,000 of some 6 million American employers supported the child care needs of the worker last year.