Thanksgiving 2016

It seems to be one of the things that people do these days for Thanksgiving..... saying what they are thankful for on Facebook. It seems a rather strange almost anonymous way of expressing gratitude for what is, for most of us, as pretty damn fine life.  It is not that our lives are perfect or that there are not numerous bumps on the road of life, but those of us in Canada have it pretty good. There is virtually no social unrest, our court/legal system while continuing to demonstrate significant biases gets it right much of the time; our politicians while some may be a bit bent in terms of what they chose to focus on - none are blatantly  corrupt; our natural disasters are mild, generally short lived with lots of support to deal with them and the last time a foreign country invaded us was just over two hundred years ago. While there is a lot of work to do to make our country more accepting and inclusive both in terms of both our First Nations and our newest arrivals - most of us are at least aware that we need to do something. We have a lot to be thankful for. Not just today but every day. We need to be celebrating and telling each other why - not just on one Monday a year.

I am having supper with my son and his family at his father-in-law. It will be fun and I am grateful that I was invited. But I suppose that it is the nature of human beings to while being grateful about some things, to be aware of missing other things.

This is the first Thanksgiving weekend in a few years that I have not driven up to Sudbury. Which means that this is the first year in a long time that I will not see the hills that surround highway 11 just ablaze with the glorious colour of an Ontario fall. I will miss that view and of course the folks in Sudbury.