Joint Kiwanis-Rotary
Thanksgiving, 1998 Happiness
Told my senior speech class I wouldn’t be there for their class today.. They asked, “In the middle of their day? How do they get off work?” I said, “I don’t know. They do it every week.” Josh: “Boy, they must have some coosh jobs!”
I’ve spoken here enough so that when we had a dinner for the Triopia football team, they all drank out of a Kiwani cup.
Had a great idea for a speech.. not Thanksgiving, but interesting..
My proposal as the Dist 117 Board of Ed. Searches for new Supt to take Bob Freeman’s place.. They’re overlooking the obvious… Kenneth Starr! He’s soon to be out of job. He dresses well. He’s used to being the best-paid man in his neighborhood. He’s used to handling large amounts of tax payers’ money with few questions asked. He’s used to being ignored. He can do his homework, come up with the right facts and figures, make a solid argument, then be ignored completely if the public really doesn’t care. I’ve taught for 28 years with my room right next to the superintendent’s office.. (still old-fashioned school.. we have the administrators in the same building with the children).. and in those 28 years, I’ve still never known what a supt does. Kenneth Starr has it down pat.. he comes out of his house in the morning, waves to the cameras, gets in his car, and you don’t see him again the rest of the day. (Note here from Steve Todd: Merle Fox will now have the job of photographing Starr each morning as he gets into his car.)
Then I thought about simply making a list of things for which we can be truly thankful this Thanksgiving season. --- Bruce Surratt is president of neither Kiwanis or Rotary --- That Linda Tripp’s mother didn’t have any more children. --- That Ed Wainscot didn’t renew his deer permit this year. --- That Henry Jackson… oh well, you fill it in as you like
Instead, speak on a very short topic.. a source of thanks that perhaps you might overlook this week.. It’s so simple, it may escape your notice.
--- A lady named Brenda.. got up in our Methodist church and asked to speak last Sunday. Being Methodists, it wasn’t like this was going to interrupt any other important plans we had. “I’m going to spend Thanksgiving with my mother next Thursday.” Spoke of her mother.. prayers.. tears.. In short, she gave thanks for life’s simplest and greatest joy… The Simple Gift of Happiness
Talked to Bob Large last night.. I was reminded of the Simple gift of Joy. Bob and I.. worked many nights onstage.. often with younger actors.. If only they had his youth.. New Salem.. Mosquitoes, 90 degrees at 9:30 at night, wet stage, a comatose busload of Baptists from Indianapolis.. “Hey! Is this fun or what?” The simple gift of joy.
A few words from Freida Marie Crump’s column of this Thursday.. Asked our guide to the Roman catacombs.. “What was a day like in the first century?” “Pretty miserable. If the food and the water didn’t get you, the next government would.” Became a favorite question. . . Tour of the dock district in London.. “Life was miserable. Few lived to see forty. Even the rich had to walk through filth to buy a loaf of bread. Happiness was in short supply.” The Soviet Union: “Pretty much the same as it is now. You tried to get by, that’s all.” Only our French guide, Marique, had a different answer, “The French have never really suffered.” “Is that because somebody’s always coming along and bailing them out?” “Let’s go see the Eiffel Tower.”
This is without doubt the best time in history to be living if happiness means anything to you. And frankly, I’ve never seen a happier, more optimistic country than The United States.
Uncle Pete.. Hay Horse.. “Boys, that was close.”
--- Music Museum in Hot Springs, Arkansas. “Isn’t life grand!”
--- The Nutman near Joplin, Missouri. Burrus trip. Sign, “Stop and chat. I’m plumb nutty.” Hay bailer accident. “I’ve gotta be the luckiest man in the world.
--- My lady friend from Chapin of whom I’ve spoken to this group before. “Oh praise God! What an opportunity for God to work!” (Now has her own TV show.. Channel 16 Quincy.)
--- I recently attended a dinner where John Bomke and Dick Cody were honored, among others.. The list of their community service was astounding.. So much of what is good about Jacksonville came about through the efforts of these two men.. and the same could be said of many of you.. but what was barely mentioned, is the happiness that both men had obviously found in simply doing that. The simple gift of simply being happy in our circumstances…
Happiness is such an integral part of our life in America, in 1998, that it’s tempting to take our greatest blessing as no blessing at all, but merely the nature of life. It is not. For most of the world, throughout most of history, this happiness we all take for granted has not been the rule.
The boy I mentioned earlier.. Josh.. hurt in the ISD football game.. won’t be playing another sport for the rest of his life.. At 1 p.m. .. having surgery that will put him on crutches for most of the rest of this year.. Friends grabbed him before school.. prayed for him. “I gotta be the happiest guy alive.”
Please, take a moment this Thanksgiving.. in the midst of your happiness… so simply give thanks to God for being happy.