Tomorrow, most of us will be feasting at tables heavily laden
with traditional meals that will leave us unbuckling tightened
belts to release our stuffed bellies. Even kitchens that supply
the homeless with their daily bread will be celebrating the
national holiday of gratitude hopefully assisted by extra
volunteers. The leftovers from the feasts could probably feed a
developing nation for a month. This is nothing to feel guilty
about, but some of us have forgotten or have never known how much
we have to be grateful for.
I do not remember World War II - although I may look like I do -
but as a young child, I discovered remnants of that endeavor
while snooping through a box in my mother's closet. A half-filled
rations book and a war bond are all I recall from that breach of
privacy, one little girls are prone to commit.
What provoked the memory was watching a DVD of a British
miniseries, "Foyle's War," which is set in Britain
before our entry into the war. This particular episode depicted
the sacrifices the Brits made for the effort. The prize in a
raffle held at the local police station was an onion. The
delighted winner couldn't believe her fortune, because she hadn't
seen one in months.
It is hard for me to imagine the New Yorkers of today, who have
their choice of every possible epicurean taste treat, having
these options restricted. Based on the complaints we make for
very minor inconveniences, one might assume we're not that hardy
a breed any longer. In fact, we are quite spoiled.
I happen to be serving on a jury at this time at a very
inconvenient time in my personal life, but all I need to do to
put it in perspective is to remember what things were like a few
decades ago. The bus I took to the courthouse this week was warm
as toast, and in the summers our buses and trains these days are
for the most part air-conditioned. Yes, there are some
breakdowns, but try to imagine what it was like when AC did not
even exist. Steamy subways had ceiling fans and torn wicker
seats. Ouch!
I have to laugh when I hear politicians and union leaders
complain about mean old Wal-Mart not offering adequate medical
care packages for their employees. In the early 1960s, very few
employers did. I worked for the New York Telephone Company, and I
did not have health care. As a healthy young woman, I didn't need
it. When I did get very sick with a cold that did not go away, I
went to the emergency room at Mount Sinai hospital. For $10, I
not only had a saline nasal rinse to clear my sinuses, the doctor
discovered that I had a busted eardrum. It was repaired the same
day in the operating room.
Most doctor visits at the time cost only $10, but this was before
Medicaid, Medicare, and other government health care programs
drove up the price of medical care and invited fraud into the
system. But that's another column.
Gratitude for all we have is hard to evoke in the affluent
society we live in, but as I sit in the court house and stare at
the wall behind the judge's bench, it occurs to me how quickly
abundance can change to scarcity if we're not careful.
In gold wooden letters, the words "In God We Trust" are
nailed to that wall and are a reminder of the establishment of
this blessed nation. America was founded by moral men, who
believed in a higher power. The word God appears in many of the
writings of our nation's Founding Fathers and especially those of
great presidents like Abraham Lincoln.
Michael Newdow, the atheist who filed a suit against the words
"Under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance, is now filing
a suit to get the words "In God We Trust" removed from
our currency. He wants to make atheism the religion of America.
He has again filed his suit in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals, which previously ruled in his favor. How did this man
get so much power over our lives?
In World War II and the subsequent wars, our enemies were
ideologically opposed to our democracy and wanted to enslave us
to their will. The enemy we are now fighting is interested in
killing us. That they haven't succeeded yet seems to indicate
that somebody up there likes us, thank God!
On Thanksgiving Day, let's truly be thankful for all those
keeping this enemy at bay.