One Woman’s View
Be thankful for . . .
Contributing writer
At this Thanksgiving time I am thankful that I live in a country which has set aside a day to be thankful for our blessings. Not many nations do that. Yes, we should thank God for our blessings every day. Yes, this one day we have set aside often seems to get lost in the mad rush from Halloween to Christmas. Even I wore a pair of Christmas socks last week, but that was only because I could not find two other clean socks that matched. In spite of these shortcomings as a society, the fact we have a day for giving thanks shows we are trying to do the right thing. I guess I’m thankful to live in a country where many people are always trying to do the right thing.
I am thankful that I had the privilege of voting in the last election. I have voted in every election for the past 50 years. Do you realize that is more than half the time women have been allowed to vote? From what I have heard of my paternal grandmother, she was a person with great intelligence, compassion, and insight. However, she could only vote in one election before she died.
Yes, we women have been voting for only 90 years. I am thankful for the brave women who risked jail and police brutality to protest the injustice of denying half the population the right to vote. In 1917, a group of suffragists picketing the White House were arrested and jailed.
Throughout our nation’s history, we have often committed sad wrongs against many of our people. I am thankful there have always been heroes who have tried to right these wrongs. My great-grandfather’s home in Ohio before the Civil War was a station for the Underground Railroad helping slaves escape to freedom.
I am thankful our country tries to provide for the needs of its people. I might not be alive today, if President Lyndon Johnson had not established Medicare in the 1960s. like many other elderly people, I have cost the taxpayers a lot of money since I turned 65, including such needed services as a C-PAP machine and an insulin pump, which I could never have afforded on my own. Even earlier, President Franklin Roosevelt instituted social security, a program which helps workers save for retirement and allows older people to survive with some dignity.
We have suffered a recession in recent years, which some say we are now overcoming. During that time many people who were out of work have survived with help from our government.
No, our country is not perfect, but I am thankful for all those who have fought to make it better, sometimes at great personal risk, and all the brave people who continue to try to right wrongs. Thank God for the United States of America, a free country striving toward the right.