Neanderpundit

Every bit of thirty five years ago (jesus, how did i get so old?) we all sat down to thanksgiving dinner at my Uncle Frank’s house. The Fairchilds were a Ward Cleaver family, to me: They had coffeetable books. Hell, they had a coffeetable! They had two bathrooms in their house! And an upstairs! Frank smoked a pipe just like Fred MacMurry. They had a bookcase full of engineering books. And every issue of National Geographic ever printed! Way back when they were full of lithographic engravings of bare-breasted African women and hunters with expensive double rifles next to freshly dead huge beasts.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, dinner. The dining room (Dining room! We ALWAYS ate right in the kitchen, they had a DINING ROOM!) my Aunt Roselle is handing a huge tureen of magma-hot gravy across me to my dad so he can sit it on the table, and splorps a huge dollop of it onto my shoulder. The burn quickly becomes a suppurating open sore, and by the end of the meal, my shoulder is swollen and a clump of skin the diameter of a golf ball has sloughed off and stuck itself to my teeshirt. For the remainder of the weekend I’m in pain and look like the hunchback of notre dame as I attempt to keep the sore from attaching itself to my clothes.

Didn’t stop me from eating more than my share. In fact, as everyone felt so sorry for me they went out of their way to make sure I got plenty to eat. For the very first time in my life I was allowed free access to the Whipped Cream bowl for my pumpkin pie.

Afterwards, my Aunt Rosie felt so bad about having spilled on me she baked cookies and made me eat them all.

Meeeeemmmmmmmrreeeeeeeeez.

Happy turkey day to you all!! Remember, this day celebrates the first proof of the abject failure of socialisim. Think back on that and grin. Some will never get it, will they?

For the folks with whom I’ve worked and played, for the bloggers I’ve met and become friends with, for the people I’ve shared the last year with: Thank you.

Because I know people who seem at a perpetual lack of understanding about these things, the feast itself is merely a reminder.

Giving thanks is something you must remember to do.

Hwo do you give thanks? Well, you KNEW I was gonna tell you, didncha?

You give thanks by being the kind of friend your friends are to you. You give thanks by being there when people need you. Even those people who don’t deserve or appreciate your help. You give thanks by doing what is right, all the time. When you do those things for others, when you go out of your way to help, that is true thanksgiving. When you give thanks, you give of yourself, and that is what others need from you most.

Giving thanks is a lot like praying. When I say that people are in my prayers, when I pray for people, I certainly don’t mean to imply that I’m on my knees reciting some prayer, or that I’m reeling off a list of people “and god bless Steve H, and god bless Francis Porretto….” (not that either of those things doesn’t happen) No, I mean that I’m offering up the work that i do and the life I live to the Creator. Because living your life, because being in the thick of life, and doing the best job you can of living it, is the best prayer I, personally, can offer the Creator. If you have to wait until you get to a specific building or a specific room in the house or do a specific thing, then you’ve missed the point.

You are all in my prayers, every day, as I try to be the best Og I can be. I hope it’s enough.

This was supposed to be the week I relaxed and things came back into focus for me. The week I spent time afield and peaced out. The week I got a deer and took it home and packed it in my freezer. Instead, friends are dying, park rangers harshing my mellow, people all around acting like jerks. And now it’s snowing.

I’m gonna be happy to get back to work, futhuchrissakes.