Happy Thanksgiving!

This is being composed and sent from the house of Ooch. He is talking to me even as I type, wanting me to come into the kitchen and watch him eat. He is an old sweetie.

Happy Thanksgiving! I have a lot to be thankful for: a roof over my head, my two kits, a job that I enjoy and that keeps me busy, and friends that I made last week to friends that go back to our year in kindergarten at Lake Forest. As the years have gone by I have made some of you laugh and some cry, some happy, some angry, and some sad - I think that's what life is about, caring and sharing, loving, living life, and growing in all areas as best as one can. Thank you for being my friend!

Our American holiday of Thanksgiving came about through the church. Churches would declare a day of fasting and prayer when they felt the government and leaders had need of better consideration of what the populace was enduring. Thanksgiving was originally a feast day to celebrate the fact that the pilgrims had lived through their first harvest in Massachusetts. My brother-in-law's family traces back to the original Mayflower settlers; the brother of my many-times great grandfather arrived on the Mayflower (my direct ancestor came a 6 months later and was soon busily employed as the settlement's coffin-maker). The tradition of observing a day of thanksgiving spread throughout the colonies, but was celebrated on different dates. In 1789 President George Washington proclaimed a National Thanksgiving Day in honor of the new United States Constitution. In 1846 Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of a magazine called Godey’s Lady’s Book, began a campaign to have the last Thursday in November designated as a national Thanksgiving Day. Her campaign resulted in victory in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln decided that the national Thanksgiving Day would be held on the last Thursday in November. In 1941 Congress named the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day, which is not always the last Thursday in November. - Please enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday!