SOME MINOR THOUGHT APPLIED TO A FEW REASONS FOR THANKS-GIVING...

EDITION OF THE THANKSGIVING CELEBRATION, 11/26-27-28 -2024 [PetPowellPress] This will be a three-day/three-edition appreciation of the great American holiday, Thanksgiving. OK, but why? Because I'm a thankful fellow and as I'm typing this I am thankful I've got this office cat to help me reach for the proper keys on the computer keyboard.
That is William Powell, a genuine sophisticate with a heart of gold and a tendency to leap on me in the middle of the night. Once I quit moaning and begin breathing again, I'll grab him, hug him and tell him he's the best guy. Yeah, I'm thankful for him -- and for all our critters through the years. Sometimes I think that if I'd been rooming with William Powell in the late '60s and early 70s I'd have had the focus to finish college. Might have gotten a degree in Feline Focus with a minor in Canine Consultation. As it was, I was all too human at the time.
[WHAT IS WILLIAM'S LATEST DUTY? I had eye surgery Tuesday morning -- second in two weeks -- and he's helping me pull this praise of Thanksgiving together. He suggested that you, Dear Readers, might want to add things you're thankful for -- send a short note with your response to [email protected]. We'll read it together, Wills and I!]
THANKS! -- SO, HERE WE GO WITH MUSINGS regarding Thanksgiving.
*Speaking of "musing" my funspouse Martha's name was "Martha Muse" when I met her -- always thought that would be a great nom-de-plume for a mystery writer. She's also the other proud Animal Nut in the house.
THANKFUL FOR YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARY? Me, too. Especially the one I visited all the time when I was a kid -- rode my bike probably 4 miles to get to it and get back home with a proudly checked-out book or two -- what a privilege that was!
THANKFUL I grew up in a small town with churches and people who went to them. Met a lot of nice people.
THANKFUL I got to take my sons, the twins Bret and Bart, to the great Six Flags Mall in Arlington before the "mall era" began to decline as if mall customers didn't matter a bit. Those things shut down with more determination to vanish than afternoon newspapers. You know, kids, in the ''60s and '70s I wrote for PM papers and then, quicker than a deadline, they shut down. Thankfully I could learn from the experience of PM papers. I learned to never invest in newspaper publishing!
That's the boys along about first grade -- Bart's on the left, Bret's on the right and they look the same now -- I'm kidding. They are nearly as old as I am.
THANKFUL FOR ANOTHER KID THING: I got to take Bret and Bart to the Fort Worth Zoo. On their first visit, when they were 3 or 4, a duck tried to peck off all the buttons on Bart's shirt. He didn't like that. Bret's shirt had no buttons. Not sure either lad has ever cottoned up to ducks, as they say out in the country near the place where all 3 of us were born, Texarkana, Texas. LARRY FYI: Their hair in this early '70s photo had nothing to do with The Beatles' style. I swear on a stack of 45 rpm records, for which I am also thankful!
THANKFUL, ALSO, am I that I was a sophomore in high school when The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan TV Show in 1964 and the British Invasion was launched. Anybody else thankful for having hear the early spinning of the platters Glad All Over by The Dave Clark Five; The Rolling Stones with a song with perhaps the wrong message to Baby Boomers, "Time Is On My Side." If you're old enough to be thankful for these songs, you're old enough to be thankful for the disco era, too.
OK, Dear Readers, I was just spending part of an afternoon thinking about what I'll be thankful for every day and especially on Thanksgiving in the United States and in the great Lone Star State. [LARRY ASIDE: If you think I am transfixed by my funspouse Martha, look at the dog she rescued, Wendy. I snapped that photo after watching the aging girl struggle to get onto the hassock just so she could look Martha in the eye. Thankful for devoted dogs, yes!?] 
We're all different, we may have different favorite songs, we may have a different favorite dish on that Thanksgiving table -- but we are all together on the mission of remembering the things, the events, the spectacles, the games and the concerts and dogs and cats for which we are thankful. We also remember how thankful we are for the people we know and love. Some of us might even be thankful for people we can't stand --
but this is not a political column, so just skip that last passage and move on to being thankful for your favorite movie, preacher, book, car, school, clothing store, restaurant,...oh, come on... This is America. These Thankful Lists can be as long as you want -- and you want 'em to inspire happy thoughts! Pizza. Whoa! There's one.
And try this thought: "A 36-inch waist after years of being wider than a '65 Oldsmobile." Drop that pizza and walk away, sir. Amen, chuckled the guy who sits and types as if donuts and hot buttered biscuits were calorie-free.
[OK Dear Readers, a confession: This Thanks list was harder to assemble than expected. I guess it oughta be if you really love the blessings of life. -- Larry]
[DEAR READERS: If you read this far, thank you and have an extraordinarily Happy Thanksgiving. Anybody has a comment, click on 'comment' below or email [email protected] and put "REACH FOR THE GREENS, SLIM" in the subject line.]