Thanksgiving Musings

Thanksgiving musings:

Thinking about people gathering and those who don't have family. And a country of abundance and those without enough food or water, and traveling, and paid holidays, and highway fatalities, and over eating, and Jean and Janice, whom I haven't chatted with lately, and Jane's skinny ankles, and books and movies. We are thankful for our children, our families, and when we stop and think about it, our jobs.

I'm thankful I work with eighteen different nationalities and races. Black, white, Asian, Filipino, Muslim, Mexican, Korean, and Okie. All these people, born in and out of the USA, working together, drinking coffee together, laughing together, griping together.

Sometimes we are thankful for our problems. What is the old homily about if everyone put their troubles on a big football field and then we could go and handpick the problems we would want to be burdened with, we would go pick up the exact problems we just laid down. They don't seem so bad by comparison. I don't know if that is true, but it is interesting to think about at a time of gratefulness.

Thanksgiving from the heart, sharing a meal, cooking for family. Uncle's favorite, so and so doesn't like oysters so leave them out of the stuffing, just come on over we have plenty of food. Trying new foods, roads, experiences, traditions, or appreciating old food, roads, experiences and traditions, or jump ahead three spaces to a new job, romance or home. We are thankful.

I'm thinking of me in my cozy wee condo and Mary in her new home. Thankful, thankful. Thankful for religious freedom and a car that runs in just about equal measure. I'm always thankful for that hot shower I mention so often. One of America's most taken for granted luxuries.

I saw the presidential motorcade blaze out of downtown the other morning, yes I was smoking in back of the building where it overlooks the I-5 corridor, but what I appreciated, what made me smile, was the 200 or so motorcycle policeman getting to ride escort. It was a precision parade of blinking light splendor, and I wondered, assumed, there had to be some pride for these local folk.

I'm thankful for my computer and book markers, and reading, and authors who write books for reading, and people who make books, and libraries, and book stores, and Mrs. Horton who taught me to read, and the Puritans who believed in teaching children to read at about the same Thanksgiving time we are now celebrating, and how that informed this country and endures.

I'm thankful for friends lending books, and breakfast with Claire and coffee with Jo-Anne, and all the raging radicals in my family, and men who read and fish and cook. I'm thankful for Michael riding his bike, and Nora and Amber bossing people around, and Judy smiling, and little princess warriors, and dancing Connor.

I'm thankful for people with pets, and people with red hair or no hair, for getting up in the morning. I'm thankful for a world that spins, and wild ponies, and wheat, and jumping frogs and that America endures.

Thanksgiving is complicated for Americans. Always abundance, usually wanting more even if it is a faster car lane or a better mall parking spot. We want to share what we have and protect what we have. The biblical "widow's mite" comes to mind. Every country, race, tribe, group has some kind of tradition for appreciation, gratefulness, Thanksgiving.

And so this is ours. We are all, everyone, thankful Thanksgiving endures. So does plastic, but that is another story.

Bo says she is bringing an apple pie to our Thanksgiving dinner and that the apple pie has a story.
I'm thankful for stories.