batyatoon | Musings On the Giving of Thanks

To whom are we giving thanks, on this day of Thanks-giving? Which is more important, "to whom" or "for what"? Is that even a meaningful question?

I'm thinking about that corny old song "Wind Beneath My Wings" (which I liked once and can't listen to anymore because enough already), and its penultimate line: "Thank you, thank you, thank God for you."

There are so many people I want to thank; some for doing specific things, some for just being there. For just being themselves. For just being. And it is mostly in the case of the latter that I also want to thank God, for making these people -- and for placing them in exactly the right part of all the vastness of the human race and its collective lifespan. The same part that I'm in.

(Though if I were feeling testy, I could complain about not having Dorothy Parker in the same part as me. Or Galileo Galilei. But today is not for testiness; today is for gratitude.)

(Alex wants to know when Testiness Day is. We'll have to work on that one.)

There are people I've never met to whom I am grateful for making my life easier, more pleasant, safer, richer, or otherwise better -- including as a random sampling:
* the inventors and maintainers of the internet and many of its landmark sites, LiveJournal and Google in particular;
* the Red Cross;
* the Hatzolah volunteer ambulance corps;
* the manufacturers of my favorite mass-produced food items, and the shippers of my favorite produce that doesn't grow anywhere near here;
* the founders of the United States of America and the writers of its Constitution;
* the ACLU;
* the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority and its employees (because much as we complain, the buses and trains really do run on time here, a lot more often than not);
* many playwrights and screenwriters, countless novelists, and singers without number.

I feel like I still have a lot more to say, but it's nearly noon and we are going into the City to meet with some out-of-town family in about half an hour. More later, perhaps.

Thanks for reading.

Musings On the Giving of Thanks

no subject