November 9, 1966
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. It’s November and so Dad says that we all need to think about our blessings and reasons we have to be thankful. Sunday morning, he challenged everybody at church to think of a new reason to be thankful each day for the rest of the month. I could do that. But I decided to do something a little different too. I’m taking a survey of reasons people in Hollyhill have to be thankful.
So I got my notebook out. Made sure my pencil was sharpened. Didn’t matter if I had an eraser. I wasn’t going need to erase any reasons for thanksgiving. I didn’t get the idea until Monday morning, so I missed out on asking the church people. I’ll ask them next week unless I see them sometime this week in town.
But it seemed easiest to start with my family. I asked Dad first, but he said I should wait and ask him last. Not sure why except he wanted more time to figure out what to tell me. Dad laughed when I told him that and said I could put down one reason for him right off the bat. Me. He’s thankful he’s my dad. I’m not putting down my things yet either, but if I were, I’d have Dad right up there at the top. The Lord gave me the best Dad ever.
I went from Dad to Aunt Love. She said Tabitha and Stephen and of course, Dad. She said her cat, Sugar. (Sugar to her. Jezebel to me. That’s the meanest cat ever. Not putting her on my thanks list, for sure.) Then Aunt Love named a good place to live and a fine church. “But first of all at the top of the list has to be Jesus,” she said. “And the Bible.” I would have guessed that last one since I kid you not, Aunt Love must know half the Bible by heart. She’s always quoting verses at me hoping that will make me behave more like she thinks a preacher’s daughter should. I guess I should be thankful that hunting the verses she quotes at me to find out if they’re really in the Bible has really improved my Bible skills. Plus, I learned to use the Concordance. Maybe not all because of Aunt Love, but she helped. The Lord sometimes works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. Oh, and the verses are always there.
Then I hunted up Tabitha. She was doing laundry. She’s always doing laundry. Says she has to because Stephen is so little that he gets dirty really easy. Sometimes I think she might be a clean freak, but it’s not so bad because she does everybody else’s clothes while she’d doing Stephen’s. She said she was thankful for Stephen. I knew she’d say that. I already had his name written down by her name. Then she said Dad and Aunt Love and me. She was thankful for the job she got at the library. And she’s thankful for books. I can write that one down by my name too.
I knelt down beside Stephen where he was playing with a wooden spoon and a big kettle. Cooking some imaginary something, I guess. “And what are you thankful for, Stephen?” He looked at me with the biggest smile ever. Another reason I’m thankful. Stephen’s big smiles and baby hugs.
I said I wasn’t going to write down my reasons for thanks yet, but I can name some of them like Dad said I should. Something new each day. So today I’ll be thankful for the pretty gourds Miss Sally gave us to decorate our tables. I found the bittersweet plant myself growing in the old orchard behind our house. God gave us a pretty world, didn’t he?
It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High: To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night... (Psalm 92:1-2 KJV)
I can’t wait to go to town and hear what Wes tells me he’s thankful for. Who knows? Zella might even think of something. Probably hairspray. She has to keep her curls right.
So why are you thankful?