Be Thankful America

We all love Thanksgiving with all of the good food and relaxing pastimes, football, parades, and just plain laziness and I would wager that most of us do remember to offer a word of thanks for the people that make our lives worth living, but I would like to say 'thanks' to this weird country we live in,

I am thankful I grew up in the 50s, when America's middle class was booming and building this science fiction fantasy we live in. I am thankful I was around in the 60s, when we (well at least a good number of us) had a whole lot of fun pushing the limits of freedom and exploring the nature of consciousness. We have to be thankful for the sheer goofiness of the 70s and the return to serious work in the 80s. And of course, we must give thanks for the amazingly rapid development of high technology in the 90s.

However, we must not forget the downsides. If we do, we lose perspective and have learned nothing. The 50s were filled with the tension of the Cold War, the 60s erupted into horrible violence, the 70s gave us cocaine, Quaaludes and disco, the 80s morphed into pure greed and the 90s tech bubble burst almost as quickly as in grew (plus, the 90s gave us the despicable Clintons). Of all of these negatives, I believe disco, an insult to 1000s of years of Western music, was the greatest evil.

I still have little idea how I should view the last 15 years. On a National and World wide level, I don't see a whole lot to cheer about and I see little sign that things are getting better. There are a few good omens. There seem to be some young folks who are learning and eager to move us out of this deep rut we seem to be stuck in. There are some older folks who seem willing to give council to those younger without resorting to preaching, lecturing and moralizing. On the other hand, you still have kids who can't stop texting long enough to hold a conversation or eat a meal and a bunch of older folks who just want to sink away into a world of cocktails, hours at casinos, overpriced dinners and poorly played rounds of golf. It's a tough time to get a grip on.

But, no matter what else is happening, people still fall in love, raise families, have some fun and generally enjoy as much as their life as they can, so things are not all that dire. Just a few adjustments, a minor tweak here and there, and we can get things rolling again. So, hang in there. Things could be worse and, odds are, fairly soon, they will get a lot better.