THANKSGIVING DAY

.....Today is "Turkey Day", although I suspect that not everyone is going to eat the traditional food.  Those who are financially secure may be grilling steaks in the back yard, or simply chicken, or hot dogs and hamburgers...or even, perhaps, lobsters.  But there are millions of people in this country now who are living in poverty.  I believe the latest figure are those whose income is below $22,000 a year.  Now, this doesn't merely apply to families who are living in run-down, crime filled urban areas; it also applies to people who live in well-to-do suburban areas of big cities who have lost their jobs, and perhaps their homes, and who have to change their lifestyle with food stamps in order to feed their families.  It is truly tragic that people have to suffer this way...and Republican congressmen oppose any tax on the wealthy 1% of this country.  The fact is that many of them are wealthy themselves. There is one way, and one way only, I believe to escape a life of poverty--and that is education.  There is no reason that I can think of that funds to improve run down schools, and funds to attract good teachers, and funds to send poor kids to college cannot be legislated.  FDR sent thousands of veterans to colleges under the GI Bill--and I am one of them.  Why not the same type of program for the children of poverty stricken families?  Oh, well, I'll get off my soapbox now.  I may not know what I'm talking about, but what I am thinking is a whole different matter.

.....In yesterday's posting, I included a stanza from a lengthy poem by Swinburne called "The Garden of Proserpine" which seemed to inspire a few readers. It was a stanza which stood out for me when I first read it.  But it was not the only inspirational stanza that I read when I was in the process of being educated.  There are couple by George Gordon, Lord Byron that stand out in my mind.  Like this one which touches upon Nature, something in life that we should be thankful for.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.-

.....To mingle with the universe!  Man, how lofty is that?  Try mingling today, Thanksgiving Day; believe me it is "cleansing," cathartic--and if it works for me, it can surely work for you.  I've written some poetry myself, but it is all put to shame by such lines as "There is rapture on the lonely shore."  Rapture, indeed.  And today, one must give thanks for all that nature provides, and Byron manages to tell us what it is.