My father taught me the dignity of labor: We ‘get to’ live, work and love

My father froze when he saw his professor washing cars.

It was 1962, and Zafar Nomani was a visiting teacher at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan., newly arrived from India on a fellowship. One day, riding past a church car wash, he spotted his professor among the people scrubbing down cars beside his students.

For the rest of his life, my father treasured that moment.

"I saw the dignity of labor," he would tell us.

More than six decades later, on this Labor Day weekend...