Happy Thanksgiving

[geolarson2]

To one and all, and while its a couple days early, I want to wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. This is a very special holiday for me and my family, near and far. A couple years ago, I sent in a letter to Smithsonian which they published in the January 2007 issue that read, "To the best of my knowledge, only the Mayflower compact united religious leaders, military men, merchants and servants. Pilgrim father William Brewster's name stood alongside the servant John Howland's. Alas, gender bias still ruled, but it was a first step toward the realization that we are all in this together." Scattered all across the United States and Canada are folks who are descended from those men who put pen to paper on board that little ship anchored off the Cape Cod coast, descended from those women who held their families together through poor harvests and cold winters, who gave each other a hand, who shred their food, who laughed together when one of their number had his or her family enlarged by another babe, who cried together when one passed on. Some had names well known to us--George Walker Bush, Franklin Roosevelt, Sandra Day O'Connor and so on. Some wrote books that we read as children, such as Laura Ingalls Wilder or acted in movies we watched like Henry Fonda, Humphrey Bogart, Alec Baldwin, Clint Eastwood or Marilyn Monroe, or made us laugh like Dick van Dyke & Don Knotts. Some sang words that touched our hearts like Jewel Kilcher, Ann & Nancy Wilson of Heart, or Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys. Some put their bodies in harms way and defended us or others, people like Tom Stone who died a few years' back in Afghanistan, or his big brother, Dana, who died in Cambodia a few decades ago, or Matt Tallman who died in Iraq, or folks like Audie Murphy, Douglas MacArthur, Bull Halsey. Some inspired us by flying higher than anyone else had, people like Alan Shepard, who is to date the only fellow to play golf on the moon, or who inspired in us a desire to make tomorrow better, men like Gene Roddenberry. Some, like Richard Sears or L.L. Bean or James Folger put their names on products or stores we all know. Mayflower descendents have even made their way into the ranks of royalty--Serena, Viscountess Linley, married to the nephew of Queen Elizabeth II, can count among her noble forebears two men who added their names to that Compact in Massachusetts Bay all those years ago. And there are some who contributed to the creation of the medium through which you're reading this--Philo T. Farnsworth, Steve Case or David Packard for starters. In and amongst all of those famous names, some the names of great families, others common people who accomplished more than their humble beginnings foreshadowed, are literally thousands upon tens of thousands of others like yours truly who look back on that ancestry, that heritage with the knowledge that its a heritage shared. For every famous name, how many unnamed but no less important people may count themselves heirs to those people--how many factory workers, farmers, ranchers, sales associates that you meet at the store, waiting in line, or sits next to you on the bus or plane is a direct descendant of those few dozen people who took that giant leap and left behind all they knew for a fresh start in a foreign world? You don't have to be descended from one of those Mayflower families to share in that legacy--what was just theory confined to the writings of dreamers like Locke and Rousseau became real and in its own way set the stage for what would come 150 years later, and what continues on right down to this very day, this idea that we are all one nation, one extended family working together through thick and thin to make things better for our kids, grandkids and great-grandkids. For those people who came before, inspired by the example of those lives, I'm grateful, and for my family, near and far, living, deceased or not yet even a glimmer in some infant's eye, I'm grateful, and I'm grateful to each of you whom I've come to know over the past 2 months here--Rob, LeoRex, WhyYou, Geezer, Ryan, Ugo, Captnjack, Tigger, Laranger, Danielle and all those I have yet to meet, thanks, and a very happy thanksgiving to all of you.