It’s cold in the mountains this year, for this time. It’s cold but the sun shines today and it seems to warm us all in some small way.

It is the day of giving thanks.

There are many different license plates in the parking lot of our hotel-motel but mostly from Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina. And, of course, one from the late, great state of Illinois. That one would be ours. Of course.

We see family and I think that we give thanks. It is often hard to remember to do so, sometimes hard to remember all that we still do have in our lives for which giving thanks would seem the proper thing to do. Family and friends, health as we have it, lingering freedom as we may still manage to find it, belief in all that we choose to believe in (at least as they would still allow us to express it), and any and all little things that remain with us or in us on this day.

I am rather tired of getting depressed about what has happened to this great land over the last gathering of years. Inch by inch or maybe more we have moved from where we should have stayed and downwind further still from all that we may have become.

I don’t need you looking after me. I have myself and others for that.

I don’t need you telling me what is right and what is not- I have a moral compass of my own.

I don’t need you teaching my kids about the evils of our past and the created fears for their futures; unless, of course, someone such as you steps in to make it not be so. Oh thank you enlightened one.

I don’t want you peeking in my bedroom window or monitoring every watt of electricity or drop of water that I consume.

I don’t need you at my curb deciding what I can or cannot send to the trash heap.

I can’t stand you in my public square as you proudly remove our simple nativity scene and smile with satisfaction of having advanced society farther still from any lasting trace of God.

I despise your defending every religion except the one upon which served as the bedrock of our independence and creation.

I challenge you to publicly defend the alchemy you pass off as science in support of all of your positions regarding the use and maintenance and future of this earth, the very one that we have been blessed to be born upon.

I defy you to defend killing a baby who has survived the first attempt.

I don’t need you taking from my pocket to pass along to those of your choosing all of the hard-earned nickels of my existence- less the pennies you manage to also secure for yourself in the act of doing so.

I believe that men and women should marry. I believe that this is also the best possible environment for any growing child. I am tired of you telling me otherwise and calling me names in that process.

I am tired of you deciding where my tax dollars are to go- and then demanding more when what we have already not-freely given is not enough to cover all that you choose to squander.

I want to keep my money and send my children to the best school possible and not the one you decide they should attend and not the one that you and your cohorts have staffed and stuffed with those who will further preach your cause and indoctrinate all within their unyielding grasp.

I don’t need you representing me and my country outside of our borders with deference and servility- bow to no man; bow to the Lord, your only savior.

I am thankful but not for you and not for those things that you continue to do against our wishes and against our well-being. And you need to stop and you need to stop it very soon because we are growing very weary and more than a little frustrated.

I am thankful not for these things that I am fast learning to despise but ever thankful for the rights and capabilities, still left to me this Thanksgiving Day, to begin to rise up and express all that I believe.

Those of you still willing and able should consider doing the same. And soon.

Happy Thanksgiving and all the Lord’s blessings to you and your families this day.