Just a Little Angst In My Thanksgiving

So what have I got against Thanksgiving?  Nothing really, I'm not some self-important gen-X wannabe hipster cringing at the thought of eating too much kitschy holiday fare with relatives I don't really like.

Rather, I enjoy eating good food, I'm old enough to be nostalgic for turkey, cranberry sauce in the shape of the can it came in, and lots of mashed potatoes and stuffing drowned in brown gravy.  And I really like being around my family, maybe because I didn't grow up surrounded by these people, seeing my extended family, sharing a good meal, and even listening to them talk sports, and gossip about people I only vaguely know is a novel, pleasant experience.

This Thanksgiving, I had a cold, and stayed home.  So I missed the big meal, the family, the sitting stuffed like some human shaped casserole, only peripherally aware of the big men in bright uniforms running around  a white-marked field of green on the TV, while the men-folk, yell instructions nobody outside this small gathering will hear.  A little way a way, feminine voices speak of marriages, divorce, death, birth, money-troubles and children.

This could be any family, but it's mine, and I'd liked to have been there.  And yes, I was thought of, and my mother and step-father, when they visited later, filled my fridge with enough left-overs to make several very nice meals for me.  So, despite the fact that I'm still coughing up nasty stuff, and eating aspirin like after-dinner mints, I have a lot to be thankful for.  I'm thankful for the nice meal that my step-father and mother brought almost 80 miles one-way for me to enjoy, I'm very thankful for their support, I've been going through a lot of dark times, out of work, and feeling very rudderless in life right now, and my family has been a beacon in the blackness for me more than once.

But I have more to thank than just my loving family, I have a lot of stranger's to thank.  People I don't know and who don't know me.  Some do no more than pay their taxes, and vote for the people they think will best represent them in government.   Some work to build and maintain water-works, power-plants, and the all-important sewer-systems, so farmers can turn water, soil, sunlight and chemistry into the food we all enjoy without a thought to those who make it possible.  And so that we have a ready supply of water when we need it, to cook, to clean, and to drink, and so that we can drink water without worrying about catching disease.  These things aren't universals, we westerners are lucky to be born when and where we were.

So, in the end, I think I feel Thanksgiving angst not because people aren't thankful enough, but because they all too often don't give thanks to those who's hard work and ingenuity made it all possible. So to you, the tax-payer, the local, state, and national representatives (even the ones I didn't vote for, even if I've called you names you probably did deserve), to the civil engineers, the construction workers, the farmers, the soil-conservationists, the waste-management people, garbage men, electricians, educators, and the thousands I, in my ignorance, have failed to name,  I give my warmest thanks.