BY RICHARD K MUNRO

Thanksgiving 1959 to 2024

Thanksgiving is recognizing and thanking the One who has provided a gift or blessing.

We have blessing of the people in our lives whom we love and who love us,
If we have the blessings of physical health and sight and taste and hearing and strength,
We should rejoice and be glad -and thankful.
If we have material blessings, a home , a cozy library, a kitchen of our own, a bit to eat and a bit to drink, music to enjoy,
We should rejoice and be glad and thankful!
We should also be glad for the spiritual blessings which give serenity and peace to our souls.
I thank God for the blessing of memory so that my mother is always near and in my heart,
I thank God for having known my father -my mother never knew hers- he was killed
August 8, 1918.
I thank God for having known my father’s father and learned so much from him especially about
thankfulness.
When I complained I was having a bad day he used to say what is it? IS THAT ALL!
Laddie, it’s nae the end o’ the warld! It THAT”S a’ ye have tae worry aboot ye
hae nae worries at a’, aye! To be trapped in a dry cave in Galliopoli wi’ the Turk a-shootin’ doon and
a-comin’ if they can to cut your heid off -AYE that’s trouble!!!

AULD POP said:

Count your blessings, lad,
not your sorrows,
count your blessings, lad,
not your disappointments,
count your blessings,
not your losses though they be many,
Give Thanksgiving, lad,
Give Thanksgiving!
For all you have lived,
For all you will live,
and for all the joys and love and frienships in your life.”
Remember, you are lucky to be alive,
lucky to have someone to love,
lucky to be loved,
lucky to have a school to go to or a job to do,
lucy to have a roof over your heid
and lucky to have tea or soup at the boil.
Lucky to have a welcome behind the door when
you come home at night.
Lucky to have the light of morning in a new day
and there in the kitchen is your mother
getting breakfast ready for us all.
Aye, count your blessings lad.

Auld Pop is gone but he still is counting his blessings with us every Thanksgiving.

He is looking down from the mantle in his kilt even now.
It is April 6th , 1917 in Salonika.
America has entered the war and for him there will be no 5th Ypres
And he will live to tell stories and play records to his grandchildren
though he will sing no more.
For the gassing at Ypres 1915 hurt his lungs and his song is silenced forever.
But he still can whistle and drum out a tune.
And he counted his blessings despite the hardships and the exile and the separations
Because he lost a few years in the war but not his entire life.
Unlike more than 7,000 men in his Regiment and 197 men in his company.
They were 200 Scottish pals in August 1914 and by April 6, 1917 they were just three.
One thing I learned from Auld Pop was gratitude and the meaning of
Thanksgiving. Ne obliviscaris DO NOT FORGET