Thanksgiving in America is a time of reflection. The truly thankful person can find a well of gratitude even amidst life’s tragedies. It is easy to be grateful when all is well. Where I live, we are well and truly into fall colors in all their blazing glory. The roads, rails, and airways are filled with travelers, more than even the poet John Greenleaf Whittier might have suspected when he penned the following stanza:

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South, come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

[The Pumpkin, st. 2]

No matter where you are this day, I wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving Day.