WHY I'M THANKFUL TODAY Being thankful for my wonderful wife, of 47 years, my six great kids or my 22 grandkids, are not my most thankful thoughts of today. Consciously and subconsciously I am forever thankful, every day, for being so abundantly blessed by having them. It is not for the relatively good health, my wife and I share, for that I thank Medicare and the Social Security Act, as long as we still have them! Another thought of thankfulness, that doesn't need a certain day to express, is for the multitude of lasting friends I have accumulated and enjoyed over the years. Yes, for all the above I will daily and forever be thankful, but, today my thanks are directed to the memories of the past! The joyful memories of my mother, father and four sisters, growing up, when we were all still friends! My mother and father have long since been gone, but the memories of them, and the life they made for us, will always be with me! For the memories of my childhood, being raised in a free country and being able to watch it grow and seeing the progress of the world developing at the speed of light, is the reason I give thanks today. As each day of my childhood passed, the next day brought new horizons being introduced to an excited world, with an overwhelming impact on each and every one of our lives and all to follow us. Only a few of us are still around and fortunate to have lived to remember these years, of world growth and this period of vast developments. Even the most minute and insignificant achievement, was a major transfusion into the relatively antiquated, but wonderful world we lived. The development and perfection of Radio played a major roll in the life of so many of us. It introduced singing commercials by the zillions, that all of us knew hummed, whistled or sang, as if the hit song of the day. Radio was in ever home, in every part of the country. If you had no electricity available, the battery from the truck, car or tractor was carried into the house at the end of the day, to supply the power for the radio to furnish the families evening of entertainment. Soap operas monopolized housewife's daily routine in every home. Kids had a wide selection of serials to listen and spent every wakening hour, with an ear glued to the radio speaker. The ability to hear a new song, the same day it was written in another state delighted young and old adults alike. Current and world news breaking events became instant news, as they took place, and the world lived the news dramas as they were evolving. Gasoline at 8-cents a gallon, 5-cent foot long hotdogs, 10-cent malts, 9-cent movies and 9-cent for a loaf bread. ! I saw it all! The development and advancement of flight, medicines, (no antibiotics when I was a kid) movies, the automobile, synthetic fabrics, availability of new varieties of foods, (in quantities as never before in markets) and the mass development of new and wonderful toys. The kids of my day made the toys they played with. We made scooters from a broken skate, carved tops and yo-yos from a block of wood, made moving war tanks from a large thread spool, a twig and a rubber band. Old car inter-tubes played a wonder part of making boys toys. From the inter-tube we cut large rubber bands, for our rubber guns made from a stick and a spring loaded cloths pin. We also cut rubber strips for our sling shots (called by another name when I was a kid) and used a piece of leather cut from an old shoe for the rock pocket and a fork cut from a tree limb. Without ingenuity, a kid of my day would have had nothing to play with. Two cloths pin made a wooden match shooter that would light a match and propel the lit match 50 feet. Of coarse these home made toys were useless to every kid, until all of your many daily chores were completed! Even a simple thing like the invention of the ballpoint pen made a tremendous impact on the world, changing manufacturer product lines or even to the point of putting them out of business. No more school desk ink wells, to dip your pen in, or the girl's pigtail that sat in front you. No more ink bottles, ink, straight pens, fountain pens, ink blotters or fancy desk sets. The development of the airplane, later helicopters, jet airplane faster than the speed of sound, bombs with the ability to destroy all man kind, the ability to send a man to the moon for a little stroll and now what will be next? Of coarse I don't believe it has been all for the best! Television has hurt our wonderful radio programs that gave us so many friends we grew up with, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Great Gildersleeve, Stella Dalla, The Lone Ranger, Captain Midnight, The Phantom, the personalities of The Grand Old Opera and on and on. It has also addicted many of our today's children and has tendencies to expose them to matter not desirable to children. I have lived to see our politics turn dirty. Assassinations of some of our fine young world leaders, Watergate and the current slimy involvement's of Wicked Willie Wacker, our illustrious incumbent. Those are memories best forgotten! We must not forget the invention of our greatest time consumer of all time, the magnificence computer! How did we ever live without one? The beauty of what I saw as a child and while growing up will never be forgot. The growth of our world today, appears to have slowed down considerably, stopped in stagnation or maybe even reversed itself! We have put a man on the moon, but still haven't found a cure for the common cold. Maybe we should take a good look at our world priorities, and make some drastic changes, so our young people of today, will have positive memories to look back on some day. Home made toys, Sunday picnics, neighborhood water melon busts and ice-cream making, a drive in the country, the family chickens and milk cow, quilting parties, box socials and all those other great memories, only my memories, but I am thankful I was there and have my memories to share. Del