Graehm Gray-Giving Thanks!
I sat down to write my thoughts on what this year’s Thanksgiving 2009 means to me and I realized that the holiday has been lost in translation. I am trying to look at the big picture for a moment. I listen to the morning and nightly news and I just about want to check myself into a self help center-can you all say depressing! What are we giving thanks for? Unemployment is at an all time high-over ten percent. That means not since the period from September of 1982 through June 1983, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, have more American’s been out of work. Now according to our government, the “recession” is over. What? Yea, I know, before everything turns around, it’s supposed to get a lot worse. Well, we are at “it’s a lot worse” and I’m no rocket scientist, but according to many expert economists, “we haven’t seen anything yet.” Does that mean 11 percent unemployment? Now, tell me again why we are giving thanks? Okay, maybe we are heading for a national health plan to cover the millions of Americans that have no insurance. And maybe we will see the end to insurance companies denying insurance based on “pre-existing” illness, and just maybe we will start to see affordable health coverage. That’s in the plus column. Our troops overseas engaged in two fronts -back to the minus column. I don’t have to tell you that there are many more national, global and personal issues that will go either into the minus column or plus columns. So what does Thanksgiving mean? I guess from the traditional standpoint, dating back to the Pilgrims, it is a time to give thanks for the harvest. The Pilgrims suffered through a bad winter in 1620 with lack of food and harsh weather. They made friends with a local Indian tribe, the Wampanoag’s who taught the Pilgrims about planting and hunting. By 1621, the Pilgrims were in a much better nutritional position with plenty of food and had what many would call the first Thanksgiving with their Indian friends. Bringing everything up to the present, we use this holiday to bring our family together, kids back from college, grown kids with their own families coming back to mom and dad’s, grandparents and friends all being together to celebrate. There’s lots of food on the table. A traditional roast turkey to carve comes out hot from the oven. Although at the first Thanksgiving dinner, the menu according to experts consisted of goose, lobster and codfish. So we eat a lot –about 400,000,000 pounds of turkey will be consumed. That’s 45 million turkeys. We enjoy the company of our family and friends. What about the others? You know the ones less fortunate, who don’t have their own home and a family dinner and who wait in lines at free kitchens across our country for a chance to eat a hot turkey dinner. Maybe the only meal they will have that day. That’s right, the homeless kids and adults, right here in the United States of America. According to Share Our Strength (www.strength.org), over 12 million kids go to sleep hungry each and every night. A recent article from the University of Michigan’s Panel Study of Income Dynamics survey published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine stated that half of U.S. children by the age of 20 will live in households receiving Food Stamps. I don’t know about you, but thinking of kids on the street, without the warmth and love of a parent and a home, and without food, makes me very upset. How can this go on? I guess we can accept it better when it is happening halfway around the world, on some distant continent that we only read about in a National Geographic magazine, or watch on a television documentary channel. “That will never be us,” we say as we reach for the chips, holding the TV channel changer in our hands. “That’s a developing country.” “That’s the third world.” Well my friends, we don’t need to look anywhere else on the map. It’s in our back yards. It’s in our neighborhoods. There are millions of Americans without homes that live on the street; American’s that get their meals somewhere or nowhere. Million’s of kids!! Innocent children! I don’t want to be the bringer of doom and gloom. I just want to make a point. Those of us that have the opportunity to sit down for our Thanksgiving dinner this holiday should spend a moment thinking about how really fortunate we are. Look around the table at each and everyone there. Enjoy their company, enjoy the food, and enjoy the moment, and realize that there is another slice of life out there. Maybe if everyone thinks about that thought at the same time, it will motivate us all to do something about it to make everyone’s life a bit better. That’s what giving thanks is all about!
Posted in: Editor's Page
