Each of us who has enjoyed a good life has much to be thankful for and there is no better time to say thanks than Thanksgiving, so here goes.
Thanks to the nation’s founders and builders who had the foresight to realize that humans are fallible and, therefore, their basic rights had to be assured by documented principles, the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States, which explain the relationship between the government and the governed and protect individual freedoms. The U.S. Constitution was 225 years old last June and, thankfully, it has stood the test of time.
Thank you, America, for taking in my immigrant great-grandparents and grandparents who could only offer their ordinary labor to their new country. They were undoubtedly saved from the Holocaust that engulfed much of the old world decades later and thanks for allowing them to bring their religion and culture as well as themselves. Thanks to my great-grandparents and grandparents for having the guts to move to a new world.
Thanks to my departed parents who worked so hard to take the family out of poverty, set a good example for their children, live as good citizens, good parents and, along with others of their generation, saved the world from Nazism and Japanese militarism. While I’m at it, thanks to all the veterans for your sacrifices throughout the nation’s history.
Thanks to New York City for being a great place to spend a childhood.
Oh, and thanks to my Mom and Dad for driving me around to deliver a ton of the Newark Star Ledger Sunday newspapers during a winter ice storm rather than let me freeze to death on my bicycle. Thanks, also, for my first car, the indestructible 1954 Buick Special.
Thanks to all my high school teachers for those incompletes rather than the Fs I should have gotten for not doing my homework.
Thanks to the U.S. Air Force for all the technical training, teaching me responsibility, and most of all for sending me to Europe where I met my wife, Joyce.
Thanks to all my buddies who showed me the ropes, took my shifts, towed my car, lent me money and uniforms, made sure I got back to the barracks in one piece, got up on time, and made me laugh.
Thanks to Joyce for marrying me and being a great girlfriend, wife, and mother over 50 years. Thanks for letting me drag you all over the world, thanks for sharing the load, thanks for the two children, 15,000 great breakfasts and 7,000 loads of wash and thanks for driving me to have an MRI last week.
Thanks to my daughter and son for being pretty good kids and turning into fine adults and thanks for not moving back home!
Thanks to you for reading and considering my ideas.
I never thought of myself in my 70s, but here I am and the best part is that I’m not alone – thanks luck, karma, or the Grace of God.
Happy Thanksgiving.
– Marty Richman
