After a hugely successful and highly attended Scarecrow Invasion & Family Festival, along with the ever popular Apple Harvest Craft Show last weekend, we are now heading into the Thanksgiving long weekend. Though last week was unseasonably warm and free of rain, as I write this column in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the temperature has dropped significantly, returning to what we expect during autumn, and there is a gentle rain falling, which is most welcome.
With the cooler air, and the leaves on many trees beginning to show their fall colours, it certainly feels like Thanksgiving weather. Thanksgiving is my favourite of all of the holidays, and it falls conveniently during autumn, which is my favourite time of year.
I always eagerly anticipate the arrival of October with its cooler air and colourful displays provided by the numerous trees which surround us. I very much enjoy the autumn vibe; I love the chilly air and windy, rainy days, and I have often thought that there is no more perfect time of year.
Over this long weekend families will gather for festive meals, many of which will include the traditional turkey and all the fixings. It’s a time to come together and celebrate all that we are thankful for, not the least of which is the local harvest.
Many families have a tradition on Thanksgiving of sharing the things for which they are thankful. For me, that tradition is sharing those thoughts with our readers on this page each year.
First and foremost I am thankful for simply existing, for waking up in the morning with air in my lungs ready to push through another day. I am also very thankful for my two hard-working adult sons, who have always made their dad proud.
While I have never considered myself to be patriotic, I do very much appreciate living in this country, and over the past year I have grown to appreciate Canada even more. With the political chaos we have been watching south of our border, and the many conflicts, armed and otherwise, that we see taking place around the globe, I can’t think of a safer, more sane country to be living in at the moment. We don’t have to like or support the government of the day in order to recognize that, in spite of our problems, and we certainly do have some, we have it pretty darned good here in Canada. Having had the luxury of travelling this planet fairly extensively, visiting more than 25 countries, for me at least there is no place I would rather live, and so I am always thankful for the fluke of having been born here. It is certainly no secret why so many around the globe dream of moving to Canada, just as my own immigrant grandparents did along with my then school-aged mother in the 1950s.
As always, when I think of all that I am thankful for at this time of year, I am thankful each and every day for the readers who pick up our newspaper each week, or visit our website to catch up on the goings on in our community. I am also thankful to our advertisers, without whom it would be impossible to bring local news to this community each week.
I am also very thankful for my small circle of friends. As an introvert, I keep my circle of friends quite small, and I am certainly very appreciative of the close friends in my life whom I love, like many love their own families. The older I get, the more I appreciate genuine friendship, and I count myself fortunate to have a couple of very close friends in my life, whom I can always count on, and they can always count on me.
At this time next year we will all be pondering the candidates for council, as the municipal election will be just a couple of weeks away. I am thankful that we live in a society in which we are allowed to mull candidates before casting a vote; not everyone on this planet enjoys such a luxury. Recently I was reading a report from the Pew Research Center that noted that of the 167 countries on this planet with populations of at least 500,000, just 96, or 57 percent are democracies. The remaining 43 percent are a mix of governance models, including 21 nations (13 percent) which are outright autocracies. I will take a democracy, even a flawed democracy, over authoritarian rule any day, so I am thankful that next year we will be able to cast ballots to elect our next municipal council, just as I am thankful when we are able to vote for our provincial and federal representation.
As I have written in previous years, I am always thankful that we Canadians can lay our heads on our pillows each night without having to fear bombs dropping from the sky, or tanks rolling through our neighbourhoods in the morning. I can’t imagine the sheer terror that some are forced to endure in war-ravaged nations, where tomorrow is much more uncertain than the tomorrows we look forward to here in the safe land we know as Canada.
Though we of course have our worries and frustrations, they often pale in comparison to the worries and frustrations experienced elsewhere, and for that I think we should all be thankful.
As I wrote on this page a couple of years ago, “In short, I am thankful for the opportunity to be thankful at all; not everywhere in the world provides the conditions in order to be thankful. I would imagine that it is much more difficult to be thankful as bombs are dropping on your town, or while terrorists are waging war on your government. I would think that it is more challenging to express thanks if you and your family are slowly starving to death in the midst of a drought. I am certain that it would be difficult to feel thankful if you were sent to a work camp for expressing disagreement with your government.”
We are truly fortunate to live where we do. We have our problems, we have our frustrations, we have work to do to improve our society, but given the craziness of much of the world beyond our borders, I am thankful to live a simple, safe, peaceful life in Meaford, Ontario, Canada.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of our readers. I hope this long weekend brings you much joy.
