South Dakota Politics: Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is a good day to reflect on our blessings. I will take the occasion.

I am very thankful that I was born. I did nothing to deserve it. I am thankful for my parents, my grandparents and great grandparents going all the way back to the beginnings of life on this world. I am grateful for my mother whose smile drew me up out of nothing. I am grateful for my father, whose presence I now have to do without, but whose love I will never have to do without. I am grateful for my brother, whose big heart and pernicious sense of humor explain why God bothered to create humankind.

I am thankful that my wife and my children were born. I am thankful that, so far, nothing really bad has happened to me or, what would be the same thing, to them. I am grateful for every moment that any one of them is present before me or in my thoughts. I am grateful for the opportunity to love them and for the sometimes astonishing fact that they love me back. Whatever good I may have done in this world, it has not been nearly enough to earn such treasures.

I am thankful for friends that somehow tolerate me. I am especially grateful for my best friend Kenny Shelton who has been giving me grief for more than thirty years. I am grateful for my dog.

I am thankful that I get paid to talk to wonderful people about fascinating things. I am thankful for my students, especially Miranda, who repay me with more questions than I can answer and more challenges than I can meet. I am thankful that they do not just write down and accept what I say, but get all cheeky when something I say doesn't seem quite right.

I am thankful that the world is ceaselessly entertaining both on its surfaces and down to its very depths. I am thankful that I have the meager ability to appreciate how interesting everything is. I am grateful for St. Paul, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Darwin, Miles Davis, and baseball.

I am thankful that I was born in a Republic. I am thankful that I enjoy the liberty to say and write what I think, without fear. I am thankful for the fact that I do not believe easily but that no belief I may hold can ever be illegal. I am thankful for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, and Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.

I am thankful that the tribes into which I and my fellow citizens divide ourselves solve our differences with bellicose speeches and ballots cast, instead of iron and blood. Having seen the beginning of Private Ryan, I am grateful that I was born in the right half of the twentieth century.

I am thankful for my laptop, this blog, and all the people who have seen fit to read it or comment on it. I am thankful for my friends and foes on the blogosphere, and for those who are both. I am thankful for my friend Ken Laster whose jazz podcast is one of the joys of my life, and for my own jazz radio show. I am thankful for my cast iron smoker and for the fact that God made pigs with ribs. I am thankful for beer.

That is no complete list of my blessings. These are some of the highlights. God bless everyone and all of you, and have a Happy Thanksgiving.