Thanksgiving

Here’s what my life looked at 7:30 on Thanksgiving morning:

It doesn’t get much more civilized than that! I’d say fine coffee, a tasty pastry and a good book – and a nice hat (1)- represent an apex of culture just below a Latin High Mass in a great cathedral.

Well, maybe not that good, but pretty good.

Son-back-from-college signed up to run in a 5K that started at 8:00 a.m. Thanksgiving day morning; I went with to drop him off early to register. Had some time to kill, Peet’s was open, and thus I found myself in the geek Nirvana pictured above.

Thank you, Lord, for my children, who are finer human beings than I had any right to hope for;

for my beloved wife;

for life in a land of plenty in a time of peace;

for life, health, and an abundant sufficiency of all material things;

for my Czech ancestors, who brought the faith from Moravia to East Texas to California and to me.

Accept our thanks, O Lord, and have mercy on our many failings.

Amen.

1. Nearly had the Full Briggs going: I’d put on a tie, grabbed a jacket and a hat, because the next thing I’d be doing after the race was gathering up the rest of the family and heading off to Mass, and I need the hat to keep my bald head warm. The Full Briggs, as I understand it (and, being a Californian, I may be incapable of truly appreciating it) is for grown men to wear a suit, tie and hat as default clothing, only deigning to dress otherwise for specific purposes, such as if one were a professional wrestler or  astronaut or something. As a native Californian who grew up amidst surfers and welders, my reaction to this could be summed as: Whoa. Dude. Those noir shamuses do look pretty natty, I must confess.