Thankful

Seems a bit circular when one’s thanksgiving is for a daughter’s safe arrival home from college for Thanksgiving as happened last evening when Kristen drove up. Looking back to Thanksgivings during other college years, when Tass was at college in Virginia and only had the long weekend, Linda and I loved going to Lynchburg to be with her. Turkey dinner at some restaurant or other. Visiting the places we enjoyed the four years she was there. One year, our motel room window looked out on the parking lot of a large shopping center where a crowd started gathering Thanksgiving Day afternoon for the Black Friday sale the next morning, my only close observation of that frantic bargain lust that has become as much an institution as the turkey. Autumn in Lynchburg was always fun. So was winter and spring. Anytime, anywhere in life is fun when someone you love is there. 

My first visit to Lynchburg was Spring 1955 as a sophomore at the University of Florida. I was nineteen, same age Kristen is now. Two of my KA fraternity brothers had girlfriends at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, where Linda was a freshman. The three of us drove up from Gainesville, leaving after class, all night drive and I got the midnight-to-four driving shift while they slept, for a spring ball weekend. Coming from the enormity of the Florida campus, R-MWC was a charming place, and it still was in 1990 when Tass arrived. 

Thankful for the years of life. For Norman and Bill. For all those I love and have loved, and for those who have loved me. And for +Time.

Thanks be to God.

Tom