Remembering To Give Thanks
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Tomorrow, most of us will be feasting at tables heavily laden with traditional meals that will leave us unbuckling tightened belts to release our stuffed bellies. Even kitchens that supply the homeless with their daily bread will be celebrating the national holiday of gratitude hopefully assisted by extra volunteers. The leftovers from the feasts could probably feed a developing nation for a month. This is nothing to feel guilty about, but some of us have forgotten or have never known how much we have to be grateful for.
I do not remember World War II – although I may look like I do – but as a young child, I discovered remnants of that endeavor while snooping through a box in my mother’s closet. A half-filled rations book and a war bond are all I recall from that breach of privacy, one little girls are prone to commit.
What provoked the memory was watching a DVD of a British miniseries, “Foyle’s War,” which is set in Britain before our entry into the war. This particular episode depicted the sacrifices the Brits made for the effort. The prize in a raffle held at the local police station was an onion. The delighted winner couldn’t believe her fortune, because she hadn’t seen one in months.
It is hard for me to imagine the New Yorkers of today, who have their choice of every possible epicurean taste treat, having these options restricted. Based on the complaints we make for very minor inconveniences, one might assume we’re not that hardy a breed any longer. In fact, we are quite spoiled.
I happen to be serving on a jury at this time at a very inconvenient time in my personal life, but all I need to do to put it in perspective is to remember what things were like a few decades ago. The bus I took to the courthouse this week was warm as toast, and in the summers our buses and trains these days are for the most part air-conditioned. Yes, there are some breakdowns, but try to imagine what it was like when AC did not even exist. Steamy subways had ceiling fans and torn wicker seats. Ouch!
I have to laugh when I hear politicians and union leaders complain about mean old Wal-Mart not offering adequate medical care packages for their employees. In the early 1960s, very few employers did. I worked for the New York Telephone Company, and I did not have health care. As a healthy young woman, I didn’t need it. When I did get very sick with a cold that did not go away, I went to the emergency room at Mount Sinai hospital. For $10, I not only had a saline nasal rinse to clear my sinuses, the doctor discovered that I had a busted eardrum. It was repaired the same day in the operating room.
Most doctor visits at the time cost only $10, but this was before Medicaid, Medicare, and other government health care programs drove up the price of medical care and invited fraud into the system. But that’s another column.
Gratitude for all we have is hard to evoke in the affluent society we live in, but as I sit in the court house and stare at the wall behind the judge’s bench, it occurs to me how quickly abundance can change to scarcity if we’re not careful.
In gold wooden letters, the words “In God We Trust” are nailed to that wall and are a reminder of the establishment of this blessed nation. America was founded by moral men, who believed in a higher power. The word God appears in many of the writings of our nation’s Founding Fathers and especially those of great presidents like Abraham Lincoln.
Michael Newdow, the atheist who filed a suit against the words “Under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, is now filing a suit to get the words “In God We Trust” removed from our currency. He wants to make atheism the religion of America. He has again filed his suit in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously ruled in his favor. How did this man get so much power over our lives?
In World War II and the subsequent wars, our enemies were ideologically opposed to our democracy and wanted to enslave us to their will. The enemy we are now fighting is interested in killing us. That they haven’t succeeded yet seems to indicate that somebody up there likes us, thank God!
On Thanksgiving Day, let’s truly be thankful for all those keeping this enemy at bay.