Monday, November 20, 2006

Thanks, Man.

Thanksgiving dinner. Is there a better moment?

Its the only dinner in my family that we anticipate so much that we actually serve it well before 2pm. It is also one of those days that seems to make everyone think back to when they were a little kid. No, not as much as Christmas, but for instance, who doesn't remember how much they didn't like green bean casserole as a kid, or how much they loved pumpkin pie, and wondered why in the world it wasn't served all year long? Who doesn't remember making handprint turkeys for their parents, and drawing oddly shaped sketches of the pilgrims and Indians?

Of course, for those who are just growing up right now, they might not have all of those memories. I'm guessing today's little ones are learning about Pilgrims and Native Americans, and they are also learning how to navigate their new Nintendo Wii's and Playstation 3's, which are now released right before Thanksgiving instead of right before Christmas shopping season. But then when you think about it, we actually consider pre-Thanksgiving AS the beginning of shopping season. Whatever happened to the official kickoff of that stuff happening the Friday morning after? Now, that's not the kickoff, its just mid-shopping season rush.

But before I start sounding like a "in myyyy day" crotchety old wind bag, lets just say this: just because things are changing doesn't make them any worse. As a kid, I had 1000 things to be thankful for, and the only thing that's changed about that is that today, I'm sure I have even more.

Thank God for On Demand. To even argue that life was better without that is a completely ridiculous argument. And while we are at it, lets just give a giant shout out to computers, my MP3 player, my instant messenger, my cell phone, my automatic door opener-clicker thingy, my favorite radio shows streaming online, and any other forms of technology that I use on a daily basis, such as zippers, doors, appliances, bottle openers, egg-beaters, and even occasionally, hangers.

Thank God we can talk to anyone we want to, almost anytime we want to, about almost anything we want to. Thank God for skyscrapers, cab drivers, and cities that never sleep. Thank God for newswires, .com's and blogs -- and also thank God for the Northwoods, crickets, the Northern Lights, and logs for a campfire.

Thank God for free enterprise, companies, home-owners and a guarantee. Also, thank God for unions, protesters, laws and rights of every man woman and child of our country.

Thank God for free-trade, thank God for java chip, thank God for "original formula" and thank God for longnecks. Thank God for low-fat, rec. centers and WebMD, but also thank God for bratwursts, extra cheese, baskets of fries and frozen custard.

Thank God for movie reviews, preview trailers, and even your friends that have terrible taste in movies.

Thank God for baseball. Thank God that soccer is there to amuse everyone in the world who isn't evolved enough to love baseball.

Thank God my fantasy football team is bad enough to not cause me to waste anymore time on it than I already do.

Thank God for Weezer. Thank God for old school bands that rock. Thank God for music that you never heard of, and you've wondered where its been all your life. But while I'm at it, thank God for JaRule, The Game, Nelly, and all the other players out there. Keep it real fellas, and remember, one day, if you work hard enough, you might be able to put out a track as good as Lupe's.

Thank God for volunteers. As long as there's at least one, the world's better off than it was before.

And thank God there's corporate marketing campaigns. Someone needs to take credit for all that work that the volunteers do (-;

Thank God for our troops. Thank God I haven't lost any friends because of the fighting yet.

Thank God for summer. Thank God for snow.

Thank God for Big Mac's, Big boy clothes, big wheels, and that creepy Big Boy logo.

Thank God for small ball, small favors and small frosties.

Thank God for wrestling, naval engineering, and space exploration - a few things that small guys have a distinct advantage in.

Thank God for long lists, and thank God for short memories.

Thank God for people who mean well but screw up.

Thank God for people who didn't know any better, but ended up totally saving the day.

Thank God for bad stories, good stories, and stories we can't repeat.

Thank God for dark truths and white lies.

Thank God for risks, rewards, taking chances and losing it all.

Thank God most people don't think like me or you, but thank God at least someone does.

Like I said before, there's 1000's of things to be thankful for. Thank God I'm not smart enough to think of them all.

But thank God you all are. I'm sure I forgot more things than I remembered - thanks for reading and thanks for sharing. Happy Thanksgiving!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Matt...

I'm not saying this because I'm your mother. :-) Just so that's clear. I'm saying this as a person who reads blogs every day of the week. And who reads manuscripts. And who reads books. And who reads news sites. And columnists. And writers' blogs, and publishers' blogs, and UN sites...and...yikes.

This blog entry is amazing.
It flat blew me away.
And I'm sitting there thinking, "This is my kid. He wrote this. WOW."

This is good enough to be major market column material. And it's a lot more coherent than most. :-)

I'm thankful for one more thing: you. What a great son you are--but even better, if that's possible (!), what an incredibly talented human being you've turned out to be, and one who's using his talent for some real, real good stuff.

Bravo. This kind of thing makes me want to put a link to this blog in my e-mail at work and tell people, "READ this. Don't we have a journalism job here somewhere?"

heheh!

See you for Turkey Day,
Mom

Deb said...

This rocks. I haven't read a better summary yet this year or last, or before that...

Thanks for the reminder that there's so very much to thank God for.

Deb, a.k.a. T2

Bucket said...

Did you ever see the Sonic commerical where the guy talks about his blog readers, and the other guy goes, "If by 'your blog readers', you mean your mother, then yes, they will see it."

That commercial is hilarious. And yes, its true, my only blog reader is my mother hahaha BUT thanks mom! You're the best. This blog is usually strictly set aside for posting juvenile YouTube videos that are funny by the way, so I wouldn't expect to find a lot of serious stuff on here (-;

- mb

Anonymous said...

This article is really awesome! People should always be grateful and counting their blessings everyday. Not all people around the globe are blessed as we are.

Thank God for this post, i shall continue counting my blessings too!