Thanksgiving Perspective

This country is going to the preverbal "Hell in a Hand Basket." Or thats what you'd begin to believe if you only lived by the overwhelmingly negative media that surrounds us. Now dont get me wrong, the US has its problems, but lets get some perspective. Perspective on what your life could look like. And that's just what I got on a very poignant Thanksgiving.

I was lucky enough to spend the day chaffering my mother-in-law and her friend Kenya, to St Louis for the turkey day feast of my wife's family. Kenya was an absolute delight! A spunky 71 year young fireball. Born and raised in Cuba, where she defected at the age of 24, to come to the US with only the clothes on her back. Leaving her family, friends and a carrier as a school teacher to start over in a land where she knew no one or anything, including the language. Compelled by her story, I listened intently as she recounted her life as a young Cuban, and how they lived under the rule of Fidel Castro. She became fed up with the Communist dictator, and the messages she was forced to teach in her school, as well as they restrictions on religious worship and watered down Christianity the local Priest were forced to preach, and decided to leave. To hear her tell about life under the a Communist rule made my heart sink. The thought that at any moment the government could uproot you from your home only to be moved elsewhere, or to be limited by what groceries you could buy, by a stipend book that you carried every time went to the store, was inconceivable in my mind. She explained how the class system worked, and how she fit into it. Life was hard, very hard.

So how perfect was this? On a National holiday, where you're supposed to take time out to be thankful for all that you have, that I had in front of me (actually in the back seat), a living example of how preciously good we as Americans have it. We have the freedom to eat and get fat. To speak, and congregate as we please, all in a country where your only limitations are the ones you place on yourself.

So tomorrow I will ride with a different purpose. To enjoy not just the comrodery of my cycling friends, and the thrill of endorphins rushing through my blood, but in recognition of the good that comes from our Democracy. I will leave from MY house, and go for a ride in OUR park with reverence of how much different life could be. Be thankful of all that you have...as some are not as lucky.