Last year, I wrote about a family Thanksgiving celebration in Hayward, Wis., during which everything that could possibly go wrong did. The purpose was to shift focus to the important things in life like family and community, since the material and trivial and uncontrollable concerns of living can drive us bananas.Yet, as usual, I was wrong by at least half, since little things also give us comfort and happiness. Without small pleasures, life would be, well, bleak.
Therefore, it's important on Thanksgiving, both for one's disposition as well as for general human relations, to acknowledge those small things that enrich and enliven our existence:
• Such as the star or planet in the eastern sky that I see most mornings before sunrise when it's dark and quiet and I'm alone. I'm no astronomer, but I'm pretty certain it's Venus, and it gives daily assurance that there is something bigger to which we are all subordinate.
• Or my old colleague and friend Ron Jerak whose amalgam of humor, irony and creativity make his e-mails an anticipated daily event.
• Ice-cold beer, which with steak on the barbecue, sates me with a dose of what I will miss when I don't get to heaven.
• No-alcohol beer: methadone for retired softball players.
• One cat commenting to another about a snarling dog chained to a post: "How come the most ignorant among us are always the loudest?" I'm thankful for this and all New Yorker cartoons that with a bit of black ink and a single sentence can make any person, no matter the mood or disposition, laugh out loud in an empty room -- reassuring proof that human beings are unique among all creatures.
• For Starbucks and Seattle's Best, for making morning a religious ceremony.
