I AM THANKFUL...
...for the taxes that I pay because it means that I am employed.
...for the mess to clean after a party because it means I have been surrounded by friends.
...for the clothes that fit a little too snug because it means I have enough to eat.
...for my shadow who watches me work because it means I am out in the sunshine.
...for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home.
...for all the complaining I hear about the government because it means we have freedom of speech.
...for the spot I find at the far end of the parking lot because it means I am capable of walking.
...for the lady behind me in church who sings off key because it means that I can hear.
...for the piles of laundry and ironing because it means I have clothes to wear.
...for weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day because it means I have been productive.
...for the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours because it means that I am alive.
...for getting too much e-mail because it lets me know I have friends who are thinking of me.
In early New England at Thanksgiving time, it was customary to place five grains of corn at every plate. This served as a reminder of those stern days in the first winter when the Pilgrims' food was so depleted that only five grains of corn were rationed to each individual at a time. The Pilgrims wanted their children to remember the sacrifices, the sufferings, the hardships which made possible the settle- ment of a free people in a free land. They did not want their descendants to forget that on the day on which their ration was reduced to five grains of corn, only seven healthy colonists remained to nurse the sick, and nearly half their number already lay in that windswept graveyard on the hill.
