Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving.

We are having the turkey dinner tonight. It will just be six of us. Covid guidelines in Alberta say only two households should eat together, and only if they are vaccinated (of course, 15,000 people can go to a hockey game, but to expect government rules to make sense is asking way too much).

Every year we go around the table saying what we are thankful for. It is always an argument about who gets to go first because they get the easy one. Family.

I’m, of course, thankful for family. Boys that continue to make me proud. And make me laugh.

My wife who has enough of a sense of humour to ignore that I spend way too much time talking about, writing about, thinking about and watching baseball. And who pretends to ignore that I have way too many guitars. I’m luckier than I deserve.

I’m also thankful for my sister. My sister has taken the bulk of the work in taking care of our ageing parents because, well, I’m 300 kilometres away. She is far too busy to do everything she has done for them, but she still does it all. My parents are lucky that she’s been around. My dad’s passing has only added to the load.

And, with my dad’s passing, I’ve been reminded how lucky I was to have had a father like him. I’m reminded of him all the time. He and I put in the front sidewalk at my house and built our deck out back. And he helped me with many other things around this house. But, beyond that, I owe my sense of humour (such that it is), my love of sports, my love of music (though he liked old Scottish songs and bagpipes. Bagpipes are some sort of joke that Scots are playing on us) and whatever work ethic I have, to him.

I’m still thankful for getting to play in this sandbox. Over the past couple of years, it has been an anchor for me to hold onto what little sanity I might still have. I’m thankful that the lovely people that run SB still haven’t figured out that I don’t know what I’m doing and still allow me to do this. I’m thankful that people come to the site in numbers that keep my those people from, well, talking to me.

I am thankful for friends. When a parent passes, you find out how many people care about you. It is humbling.

I’m thankful that I and my family have made it this far through the pandemic. I have been saying that I would be agitated if I caught Covid now and died. I mean, I could have died from it 18 months ago and would have been OK with it, but after getting this far, I’d hate to die now. It would just seem like a waste.

I’m thankful to be going to a gym again. I need the activity.

Share what makes you thankful.