Giving Thanks

It is time to give thanks.  Yes, I realize it is Christmas Eve and not Thanksgiving but what better "reason for the season" can we have than to give thanks?  So here goes.

I'm thankful for Coaches everywhere. Coaches give so much to the growth and development of our children, gifts that don't always get acknowledged.  The hours are awful.  The pay is not enough to register.  Good coaches do it for the kids.

I don't know a single coach that puts winning above the welfare of their young charges.  Maybe in days of old, before we knew better, but not now.  Oh, they're probably out there.  But they don't live or work in this backyard.

And teachers.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  What an underappreciated group of people.  They sometimes are trying to teach young folks things that they don't want to learn.  Imagine how difficult that might be.

Maybe if all the classes were about video games, texting, smart phones, and social media, they could get 100% attention.  Yet, the learning of things that we don't find interesting teaches us HOW to learn.  And that is a life skill that is essential. 

So thank you to all teachers and especially all the teachers that put up with my shenanigans (except for maybe that English teacher that insisted that I learn to properly diagram sentences).  And God bless those teachers that teach things like Physics and Chemistry that few students find compelling.  They may someday realize how important that stuff is.

Thank you to preachers everywhere.  We rarely think to tell them thank you for doing all they do.  We need the moral compass that comes from someone spiritually connected, who is willing to share that connection with us.  They're not perfect and once you realize that, you will probably be able to learn more from them.

A big thank you to those in health care.  Yeah, I know that's a bit self-serving but it's true.  Thank you to physicians in particular.   It used to be that they were the best paid people around.  Not so true these days.  Most of them could make more doing something else. 

Most of the doctors that I know do it because the work is rewarding.  Because they want to make a difference in the world.  Because they have a skillset that can help people be healthier.  And the difficulty in getting paid for what they do (paperwork, insurance regulations, people making reimbursement decisions that have no idea what the patient needs) be darned (this is a family newspaper, after all), they do it anyway.

Thanks to the farmers.  Without them, we wouldn't survive.  I don't know too many of them that are in it for the money either.  And the hours?  Ridiculous.  There basically aren't any hours--there is always something to do.  A friend that was getting her chickens to the market recently worked 30 straight hours.  And then the price she got for those chickens wasn't what it should be. 

It doesn't deter her. She probably dismissed it as the price for the lifestyle she chooses to lead.  Working on a farm, raising her own food and enough to sell to help pay the bills.  I often brag that I "live on a farm" when all I do is raise a few vegetables and some berries.  Real farmers allow the rest of us to live the life we want to.

I'm thankful for good bicycles, Benton's bacon, a truck that starts in the morning, good restaurants, and the fact that I don't live in Atlanta.  

And a big thank you to the kids that I work with that keep me young, grandchildren that remind me what life is all about, and a wife that tolerates the roller coaster that living with me must surely be.