A tradition

Every year, Ron Green Sr., a retired sports columnist, writes a Thanksgiving column for the Charlotte Observer. Every year, he evokes things and scenes and experiences that, because I grew up in the place that I did, are familiar to me with exacting clarity. Every year, I read it. And every year, my eyes are watery by the end of the piece.

Be thankful, even for the Panthers

Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009
Ron Green, Sr.

Today, on Thanksgiving Day, I’m thankful for:

• Duke football having enough good moments this season to stir up a few ghosts of long-gone glory.
• Big ol’ athletes talking about their momma and her mac-and-cheese.
• Another college basketball season in full bounce and if the old grads are right, everybody has a darn good shot at winning it all.
• Dreamers and their dreams. What’s life without them?
• The Panthers. Without them, what would talk shows and barflies have to talk loud about? Jerry Richardson watching it all from his box and still, in these hard times, the most respected and beloved sports figure this town’s ever had.
• Kyle Busch running flat out, a ride on the wild side, stirring the pot, the way it was meant to be.
• A street musician’s plaintive song, the soft rustle of corn fields stirred by a restless breeze, distant thunder on a hot, restless night, orchestras of insects humming and sawing their one-note music, a train whistle in the night, rain slapping against a window, children playing, a church choir, the hiss and rumble of a bus on a downtown street, high school bands blasting out fight songs, wind chimes telling us how the weather is out there. Listen. Listen to the lullaby of life.
• Coaches who leave something to chance.
• Golf courses, beckoning, promising, whispering sweet lies about birdies waiting for us out there.
• Barbra Streisand, quiet for too long, singing to us again, painting the air with her music.
• Brett Favre. Like a kid in a candy store, he couldn’t make up his mind. That’s OK. He’s playing and football is better for that.
• Christmas lights, reflected in the eyes of little kids, and Christmas songs playing in our heads and our hearts.
• Arnie. He made it to his 80^th birthday and there’s still a lot of golf to be played, even if it is golf like sportswriters play.
• Faded family photographs. You know, except for the wrinkles, the gray hair, a few more pounds and the creaky joints, I haven’t changed a lot over the years. No, really.
• The Bobcats’ Larry Brown. Has any man ever loved the act of coaching more?
• Beth’s way with children. Her love of all living creatures, except bugs. Her caring for an ol’ husband who forgets stuff but never forgets one thing - what she means to him.
• A houseful of family - one big endless hug, one sweet, happy time.
• Infielders and goalies, living in a split-second world and somehow making it all look graceful.
• Crab fritters, cheeseburgers, hushpuppies, pasta with clam sauce, fried oysters, barbecue, shrimp and grits, chili, gravy, onion rings and other health foods.
• The Checkers and the Knights. They don’t draw big crowds but they draw devoted people who love their games, and that’s a precious thing.
• That weekly column the farmer (Dean Mullis) writes in the Observer on Wednesdays.
• The Augusta Masters, where you feel golf is being played to classical music. Pinehurst on a perfect autumn morning when the shadows lie long across the dewy fairways and the golden pine needles. The Quail Hollow Championship, when Tiger’s on the prowl.
• “Gunsmoke” reruns.
• Maestros with arms waving, hair flying, head bobbing, beseeching the orchestra, “Don’t play the notes, make music!”
• Leftover turkey sandwiches with a side of leftover dressing.
• The Head Shop. This is not a paid advertisement, this annual mention of my barber and his cohorts in this space, but in the interest of full disclosure, they did give me a hat with their logo on it last year. It’s cool, too.
• My golf buddies, poor souls who have never made a putt, never gotten a break. I swear I don’t know why they keep playing.
• Neighbors waving to us, friends sharing our lives, rounding off the day’s sharp edges.
• A day at the beach - the romp in the surf, the dozing sunbath, the fish that didn’t get away, the battle of the bumper cars, the seafood platter, the waves singing a goodnight lullaby.
• Books, opening doors to new worlds.

Another year, another Thanksgiving. Enjoy, and many happy returns.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/208/story/1076499.html

PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S THANKSGIVING DAY PROCLAMATION - OCTOBER 3, 1863

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the everwatchful providence of almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.

50 Cent at Highline Ballroom

To celebrate the release of Before I Self Destruct.