Giving Thanks, 2018 Edition

     Yes, this is the day for it. Yes, gratitude is the secret ingredient to happiness. Yes, even in the deteriorated conditions of America today, we each and all have much to be thankful for. Yes, yes, yes. But the usual parade of Thanksgiving acknowledgements is fraught with cliches and repetepetepetition. Some freshness is urgently needed.

     So before I set my fingers to the keys this windy, cold Thanksgiving 2018 morning, I pondered the “outlier” blessings: the ones people tend to slough in composing their “I’m thankful for” lists. Here’s what I came up with – and as usual, your mileage may vary.

     I’m thankful for:

• Flomax^®.
• Hot running water.
• The independent-writers movement.
• A general contractor who keeps his promises.
• An auto mechanic who seems to be able to fix anything.
• A ten year old desktop computer that still serves me adequately.
• The hedge that buffers off the noise from the connecting street that runs past my house.
• The New York State wine industry, whose products abate many of life’s other unpleasantnesses.
• A wife who can out-cook anyone since Brillat-Savarin, can’t abide meddlers or fools, loves the Yankees and the Rangers, and reads as compulsively as I.

     Okay, that’s enough of the personal blessings. Now let’s get to the public ones:

• Leftist idiots so numb between the earphones that they publicly imply that the federal government would use nuclear weapons to enforce a gun confiscation.
• Inexpensive gasoline. (Hey, a gallon for two dimes is pretty damned good. They have to be two silver dimes, though.)
• A Republican Establishment that’s finally shown its true colors by openly stumping for Democrats. Buh-bye, Fredocons!
• A president – at long last! – who’s willing to tell the heavily left wing “news” media exactly what he thinks of them.
• The absence — at long last! – of the odious Barack Hussein Obama from our television screens.
• A president who seems sincerely to put American interests above all the globalist and internationalist BS.
• A nation with so many guns and gun owners that would-be tyrants are beaten before they start.
• A rising economic tide that gives the lie to the Democrats’ “We’re the party for minorities” crap.
• A slowly but surely rising social tide that rejects political correctness.

     That’s enough for a compendious “grace” prayer over the turkey.

     Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Go easy on the stuffing. (Remember why it’s called that.) Though Thanksgiving Day comes but once a year, if not approached with caution its effect can extend through the 364 after that, and the 365 after that, and the 366 after that, and...!

     (tee hee)