Headline: “Say goodbye to Target runs on Thanksgiving”
Dear Friends
Thanks to Sarah (she
persisted) Hale for her tireless effort (40 years) to establish
Thanksgiving as an official, national holiday. (There were many and various
kinds of local Thanksgiving celebrations before then.) Thanks to Abraham
Lincoln for finally making her dream come true.
And now, thanks to Target Corporation for
announcing that starting this year, they will be closed on Thanksgving Day.....forever!
Their official statement included this: “What started as a temporary measure
driven by the pandemic, is now our new standard”. Pushback from employees
and increasing on-line shopping are also factors.
But you and I know the main factor is that they finally
buckled under the pressure of my phone calls and letters to the editors over the
past 40 years! (He persisted). So now the only stuff
we need to rush out to buy on Thanksgiving (as if we didn’t already have enough
stuff) is if we forgot the stuffing for the turkey.
Of all the prayers and hymns and scriptures and just
my thoughts about Thanksgiving/thanksgiving I could share, I will let 17th
century Anglican priest and poet George Herbert have the final word.
Here are words from his longer poem, Gratefulness:
Thou
that hast giv’n so much to me
Give
one thing more, a grateful heart.
Not
thankful, when it pleaseth me;
As
if thy blessings had spare days:
But
such a heart, whose pulse may be thy praise.
Happy Thanksgiving!
John
