Dear List
Thanksgiving has become the best holiday of all. No rush, no bustle, no wild shopping. It is a time of Friends, Family, Food, and Fun. Even when you celebrate alone, as Dot and I do, it is a wonderful relaxed holiday. I began the day chopping wood and stacking it, then graduated to cooking, a leisurely lunch, and now I'm just puttering around in the kitchen managing the dinner which is largely cooking itself.
I'm cooking this year my "Marching Through Georgia Ham." Sweet potatoes, green beans, creamed onions, and a host of other goodies. Will be eating left overs for a week Gotta love it.
Thanksgiving is truly American, and truly a time of wonderful excess. But as I get older I more and more realize that Lincoln knew what he was about when he created it in the dark days of the Civil War. Even then he saw that we had much to be thankful for. I realized as I was pausing in my labors of splitting wood to reflect on the mild but beautiful day God has given us, that I have much to be thankful for.
1. I made it to a more or less comfortable retirement.
2. I live in a wonderful country people are desperate to get in to .
3. I live in a beautiful part of the country surrounded by trees, and will be moving to another beauitiful part of the country with even more trees.
4. I live my life more or less free of fear and want, and most other people around me are in the same condition. I don't consider it smug or arrogant to also believe that those who aren't, in the vast majority of cases have only themselves to blame for it. Please note that's not being pharasitical, just thankful.
5. I'm thankful I have had a first rate education though it's not been much use in raking in the money, but it has made me happy and allowed me to understand and deal with the world around me better.
6,. I'm thankful I managed to avoid the dangers of addiction, smoking, and got through all those absolutely stupid things that I did as a teenager and not get killed, maimed or permanently disabled, and that I am in reasonable and fairly good health for a person of 67.
7. I have a wonderful wife, a loving person who while she may not be the most beautiful, sexy, intelligent, or richest woman in the world or even who I dated, nevertheless has a good heart, which is the real reason I married her. Beauty fades, sex loses its fire, intelligence can lead to peevishness and crabbiness, and riches can be wiped out in a blink of an eye- but a good heart stays forever.
8. I am thankful for good friends in life, locally, through work, here on Daisy and the hobby who I have met through mutual interests and who have stood the test of time and difficulty and remained.
9. I am thankful that I have taken the "Hobbit's path" and rather than pursued fame or reputation or riches, I have chosen to surround myself with small intimate objects of beauty and meaning, that just in their proximity give me joy and pleasure when I see them. I am glad and thankful I can see and enjoy these things and find so much in the little things. I like especially that I can entertain myself and be happy with these things and for that I am thankful for.
10. I am thankful for my faith, and thankful to God for giving me all, it is a great consolation, and would be thankful even if there were no God that I am afflicted with the delusion of faith and that there is one. It motivates and actuates one in the right path and right thought so that even if there is no God, believing in one that says "You can do nothing for me, but rather do for your fellow man, be merciful and kind to him. I treasure the "delusion" that there is a God who says "I desire not your bloody sacrafices or your endless ceremonies, but rather desire heart felt mercy and a pure heart." Such delusions are wonderful to bear.
11. I am thankful for my hobby for it has been a never ending source of entertainment and enjoyment, It has taught me so many things, and has enabled me to transcend the world around me and transport myself to other times, other places, and imagine the most wonderful and fanciful things.
12. I am thankful to my study of history, and my continued studies which my education marked out the path for me, so that they can be studied systematically. I especially am thankful for the "secret knowledge of things" that they have imparted, so that when I see different places, foreign places, historic places, I know the story behind them, and the story behind little every day objects and things. Knowing these things imbues these even inanimate objects with a spirit and a purpose which makes them so much more than mere matter in a different form. It makes Soup or Stew or Goulash served in a tureen far more tasty and ladled out of a pot or bowl, and it makes the use of a fish-knife to clean and prepare fish a real pleasure and not a chore. It makes of the commonplace a notable event, a magical ceremony, a rite, a ritual in which we connect ourselves to a civilization of people who have done all of this before. A world of napkins, umbrellas, calling cards, rules of etiquette and courtesy that make even the mundane as pleasurable as well.. Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Eat much. Eat well, and if you can't, come on over to my place. There is still time and all are welcome.
Otto
