By JACK GODBEY

Community columnist

Autumn has arrived and the beautiful red and yellow leaves that adorned the trees that were once so appreciated for their beauty are now being raked and bagged for removal.  Autumn has always been my favorite time of the year and after blinking once, it appears that time has rolled on and the holiday season is upon us. 

The retail stores have been trying to push Christmas down my throat since Halloween and as is normally my practice, I have refused anything Christmas related until I have brought out my best dishes and have eaten my Thanksgiving meal.

It seems that Thanksgiving is the Rodney Dangerfield of the holiday world. It doesn’t get any respect.

As soon as the Halloween candy is sold out then the stores are ready to take on Christmas and Thanksgiving is ignored. I think that the turkey and canned pumpkin industry are especially upset about that. They have one month out of the year to sell as much as they can before their items are ignored for the other 11 months. 

Therefore, in respect for Thanksgiving, I will slow things down and take this opportunity to tell you the things that I am most thankful for.

I am thankful for my remote control. I can watch TV and never have to get up out of my chair. Gone are the days of my childhood when I had to actually get up to turn the channel usually with a pair of plyers because the TV channel knob was broken. 

I am thankful for Netflix because the only thing on TV on Thanksgiving Day is football and parades. Both are full of characters with big heads and both are full of hot air. I would rather be tied up and forced to watch the life story of the Kardashians than to watch either of those things. 

I’m thankful for the snooze button on my alarm clock. It seems that there is no more appreciated and deep sleep than those last few precious moments gained five minutes at a time. 

I am also thankful for full service oil changes. There was a time when I would never allow another person to perform maintenance on my vehicle. However, 10 years and one spine surgery later, I am more than willing to let someone else crawl under my vehicle while I sit reading a two-year-old edition of Popular Mechanics magazine.  

I am thankful for the self-service checkouts in Danville’s retail stores. In and out of the store quickly with little human interaction means Merry Christmas to me. 

I am thankful for unsweet tea. Don’t pull my country boy card just yet, I don’t drink unsweet tea for goodness sake but I appreciate being able to sweeten it myself. Most sweet tea has enough sugar in it to give a hummingbird diabetes. 

I am also thankful for online shopping. While I would never dream of participating in that nightmare-wrestling match otherwise known as “Black Friday” sales, I can relax in the comfort of my home and snag many of the same deals on store websites on Cyber Monday.

I am most thankful for my friends and family both past and present. The best part of this otherwise intolerable holiday season is an opportunity to contact those who mean the most to me and catch up on our lives. Sharing the good times and good food with my wife is the best part of everyday holidays included. If you’re reading this, then I am also thankful for you as well. 

 

Jack Godbey is a resident of Danville and is a published author.