Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving, a day of family, friends, and joy and also, of course, a time to reflect on the blessings in our everyday lives.  This year in particular, I feel like I've been richly blessed.

I am thankful for:

1. My beautiful wife, who is not only my best friend but also, still, a wildly attractive, incredibly fit specimen of womanhood.  It's true.  My wife is a few years older than I am, but she teaches something like fifteen fitness classes a week, and she still has the body of a 25-year-old.

Sally & Hannah at Sally's birthday party last month.

I am truly a lucky guy.


2. A livelihood that provides a decent living.  It's not easy to make decent scratch in this country, especially as a European Historian.  But I've done okay professionally, and it's allowed me and my family to enjoy an undeniably good standard of living.  I also get to do something that never requires me to compromise myself or my integrity and that I think serves the public interest on a distinctly local level.  That's not nothing.


3. Our nation.  This is not the part where I sugarcoat the problems that America faces, but I will say that we all could have been born in Fallujah, Iraq, or Allepo, Syria, and I personally give thanks every day that I and my family were not.

Do we still need to strive to make the world a better place?  To ensure that government of the people, by the people, and for the people lives up to its own promise and potential?

Of course we do.  But we must also give thanks for what we have as well.


4. My health.  I feel good mentally, physically, and spiritually.  Yeah, it's been "a lot of water under the bridge," as my wife and I like to say, but we're making it.  I'm back in the gym, and that alone has been great for me.  The fact that I can work out without injury is worth quite a lot.

5. Army Football.  The team is 8-3, and despite the set-back at North Texas last week, it's been a terrific, terrifically enjoyable season.  I already can't wait to get back up to Michie Stadium for next year's home series.

Sally & me at the Duke game.

Go Army!  Beat Navy!!! 


6. My family.  I have great kids.  I mean, they are really terrific.


7. Our friends. Finding a sense of community is not a given in today's crazy world.  But Sally and I have lots of friends, some of whom are like legitimate family, and I am incredibly grateful to have them in our lives.  Some of them are coming over today to celebrate the holiday with us, and it means everything to me.

At opening day for the Bridgeport Bluefish.