Pool: Thankful for Thanksgiving

I am so thankful for so many things this year. I am thankful for my family. I am thankful for my church. I am thankful for my job. I am thankful I can pay my bills.

My heart breaks for those who do not have those things and are struggling to get by without a job.

It breaks my heart that people do not understand how terrible it is to want to work, to need to work, and not be able to find a job.

I am thankful not all are as inhumane as those who believe people are sorry and lazy and prefer to get a small amount of unemployment than have a job and earn a living.

I am thankful a good portion of this country understands even if you are unemployed you and your family still deserve to eat.

Empathy among many seems to only exist for billionaires and millionaires, not for common working folks. We have seen people in Congress not wanting to extend unemployment benefits or provide food stamps but want to provide a $100,000 or more tax break to the rich.

I know what it is like to hunt for a job and not find anything. When I moved back here from Selma I did so without a job. I always had been able to find a job and did not realize how difficult it would be to find one here.

I eventually got a job and was glad to get it even though it only paid about $6 an hour and no insurance, no vacation days, no sick days. I was glad when I got my second job working at a big box store in LaGrange. Even though it was part-time it provided insurance. Four days a week I worked both jobs. It was hard but I could pay my bills.

That was before the recession. Now, for job hunters it is so much worse. Much of the public does not understand what it is like to not have money coming in and no family who can help out, as is often the case here. They do not understand what it is like to be older, a person who worked hard all his life and who now is not able to find a job.

There are 192,500 people who are unemployed in Alabama, and 14.8 million people who are unemployed nationally.

During President George W. Bush’s eight years only a little over 1 million jobs were created, less than the economy had generated during any other two-term stretch since World War II: Dwight Eisenhower produced nearly 4 million, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson (together) almost 16 million, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (together) 11 million, Ronald Reagan 16 million, and Bill Clinton more than 22 million.

Yet the tax cuts in place during the second President Bush’s administration are now being touted as imperative for job growth—the ones that have been in place while few jobs were created.

We’d better enjoy this Thanksgiving because nobody knows what the future is going to bring.

Family will do what it can—make room for others, help with rent or food, but there are many who do not have family for backup help.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because of family. Much of the family continues the tradition of coming to what was Mother’s house and celebrating together. Everyone brings dishes and we eat well and visit.

We miss Mother who died in October of 1999, but we try keep alive her tradition of coming together as a family.

Like most families we have different political views and support different teams but we try set that aside and enjoy the holiday.

It really troubles me that so many stores are open on Thanksgiving, preventing families from gathering together. I understand it has been a tough time for retailers but would it really hurt their bottom line to allow mothers and fathers and daughters and sons and grandchildren to not work that day and spend it with family?

People talk about the breakdown of the family but is holidays shared that knit relationships together and allow families to visit and cement the love that flows between them.

Around Halloween stores were putting out Christmas items, skipping right over Thanksgiving. It seems to be becoming less and less important in the mad dash to commercialize everything to do with Christmas.

Everybody has different Thanksgiving traditions. One friend says their family always goes to the movie theatre as group after eating and family time. Whatever the family tradition is, that is fine. But, remembering those we love and visiting with them or calling them should be an important part of the holiday.

I wish everybody a great get-together and safe traveling on what looks to be like a rainy day Thursday and Friday.

And then comes the important after-Thanksgiving event. No, not shopping. War Eagle! Go Tigers!