A Lucky Man

Being loved completely is an unbelievable gift!
by Charlie Leck

I'm preparing a review of Richard Russo's wonderful and surprising book, Bridge of Sighs, and have this wonderful quotation in my notes that comes back to mind regularly. It seems as if Russo wrote the words for me.

"When someone knows your deepest self and still loves you, are you not a lucky man? Having spent much of the last month or so dwelling on the past, I'm particularly pleased to consider that there's someone who knows me so well and yet doesn't regret a lifetime spent in my company…"

I am indeed a lucky man; for my wife loves me without reservation, even though she knows the inner, secret and not so pretty me. I wonder if I ever tell her how grateful I am for that love. I don't think I do. I express my love for her often. Sometimes I do it romantically. However, I don't think I have ever just simply thanked her for loving me so completely.

If you are embarrassed at this point, stop reading; for it will get even more personal as I go on!

A number of years ago, as an anniversary gift, I combined a couple of photos from our honeymoon with a poem I wrote for her. She keeps it hanging in a private place where she can read it regularly but not where others might be embarrassed by it. It doesn't embarrass me, so I'm proud to reproduce it for you here.

I love you more now than then
When fire and adventure lured us from a lulling
And the heat and dangers of it
Are what we built upon.
Now you are more beautiful to touch and watch
In the grayness of a dull morning than then
When we woke with the blue seas of gods and goddesses
Beneath our very window.
I love you more now than then
When I thought I could not love you more.
Now I love you for what you are
And not what I thought you might be.

That was written approximately ten years ago. In fact, I love her even more today.

Sometimes, soundly sleeping in bed at night, she'll stretch a leg over and touch my calf with her toes. No big deal, right? Wrong! A sense of peacefulness such as I cannot describe comes over me and every worry and trouble that I might have burdening my mind simply slides away.

She is in London as I write this. I talked to her just moments ago and her voice, even through the cell phone and from thousands of miles away, reminded me of just how awfully fortunate I am to be her life's partner. I am indeed a lucky man; for she knows my deepest self and still loves me. It is something of a troubling time for her and I wish I could be with her, to hold her.

Random Thoughts on a Snowy Day

This is why we live in Minnesota
by Charlie Leck

There is a heavy snow falling here in central Minnesota. It is a glorious, peaceful and quiet day. I am sitting in my cozy, loft study. It looks out and over acres and acres of thick trees of every sort. There is a very private walk-out, outdoor deck to the east of my study and another, larger one to the west. We call one of them the morning deck and the other the afternoon deck. I can sit here at my desk and watch the snow accumulating on them. I will need to do some heavy-duty shoveling in a little while. I know about the warnings given folks my age about shoveling snow. I'll be cautious and take plenty of rest periods.

We love this kind of day. This is why we live in Minnesota. We gave only fleeting thought to finding a winter place in the south. We examined several parts of Florida, the Carolinas and Arizona. It is fortunate that my wife and I feel so remarkably the same way on this question. We simply don't like the south. After a few days in any of these states I mentioned and we begin to feel separated from our roots. We love snowy days like this. My dear wife is in England right now and she is missing this wondrous sight. She would be out in it if she were here. She knows how to dress for our kind of weather and she bundles up and gets out to enjoy Minnesota's winters. She loves the cleanness and crispness of the air.

I find my enjoyment here in my study. I build a fire and have some good books at hand. I'll spend the day reading and writing and take a break only to do some shoveling before darkness settles over the snow. The farmer who works for us has the big tractor all rigged up with the giant snowblower and he'll do the long driveway to the house before the daylight departs. When nighttime has settled over this lovely part of Mother Earth, I'll allow a little scotch to spill over a glassful of ice and I'll sit and sip before the fire with my book, and wait for hunger to make me rise.

Alone tonight, I'll dine before the TV and watch the Missouri – Oklahoma football game. Life doesn't get much better than this.

The morning light will reveal just how severe the storm has been. I imagine there will be more shoveling and plowing. Again, I'll build some fires and enjoy every moment of being snowed-in here in this peaceful, quiet place. I'll have quiet hours to read through those parts of the Sunday New York Times that I enjoy so much.

The whole world should know such peacefulness and such stillness of heart.

The Confusing World of Digital Photography

Getting better snapshots!
by Charlie Leck

Today's blog is about digital photography
in answer to questions from my readers.
If you're not interested in the subject,
come back on Monday for my next blog
about true political conservatism. On
Wednesday, the 5^th, I'll post a blog reviewing
Richard Russo's novel, The Bridge of Sighs.

Several comments came in about my blog on 7 November – 4 tips for digital photographers. Several of you asked questions that show you're still confused about how to process your own photographs. Most of the problems appear to revolve around proper sizing and cropping. It's true that most camera manuals don't give adequate information about this subject. However, you should be able to find tips and instructions in your image processing software (PhotoShop or PhotoShop Elements or the software included by your camera manufacturer). Nevertheless, let me give you a few bits of information and a few quick tips on digital image size.

I'm a member of the National Association of PhotoShop Users. Though I've given you a link to the association's web site here, it is a membership organization and it is difficult to find answers to specific questions without being a member. Naturally, however, you can shop on their web site! If you want to hone your skills with your camera, the founder of this association has a marvelous book on the market that can be very helpful: The Digital Photograph Book by Scott Kelby. It will take you through everything you need to know, in simple steps and simple language, about improving your digital photography. However, it is not going to explain a lot of the gobbly-gook a lot of you get confused about. For that, Photo.Net has an excellent beginner's guide to digital photography. It's sitting there on the web and it's totally free. I recommend it. They take you through all the basics about pixel sizes and pixel counts. They cover a lot more, too: colors, file naming, memory and processing.

To get you started, however, and to answer the questions sent by a few reads, I'll outline some basics for you right here.

KEEP IT SIMPLE
If you are using just a simple digital camera and your goal is to obtain quality snapshots, keep it very simple. Shoot in the JPEG mode. Your camera will give you several choices. If you take your memory card or stick from the camera to your local drug store, the little machine sitting there will do all the processing and spit out your photos on the spot. You will probably be happy with the results; however, the machine has made a number of decisions about the photo and processed it according to its own will and not yours. For instance, if you've asked for 4x6 prints, the machine probably has to do some cropping because your photo format is really 4.5x6. Therefore it lops off a half inch and usually evenly divides that between the top and bottom of the photo or from each of its two sides. That may end up giving you something you did not want.
This is why it's best to get to know your image processing software – whichever one you received with your camera or go out and buy PhotoShop's inexpensive ELEMENTS program. When you take a photograph and then put it up on your computer, that's when the fun starts.

Here's a lovely snapshot a friend recently took on a trip to France, out at Monet's Garden in Giverny. It shows how the photo might have been process in a drugstore machine and how it should have been correctly cropped.

[BLOGGER.COM WILL NOT SHOW THE SNAPSHOTS.]

This friend had over 250 remarkable snapshots. I went through all of them in just a couple of hours and set up the proper cropping and sizing boundaries. Then printing became very automated and easy.

As taken by the camera, the photos were approximately 17 inches by 13 inches at a very low 180 pixels per inch resolution; however, when we reduced the size to 6x4 or 5x7 the resolution rose considerably into very acceptable ranges. A resolution of 300 pixels per inch is very good for printing snapshots. For more artistic and professional results you will want to get resolution up to 400 or even 500. We printed my friend's snapshots in 4x6 size and 500 resolution. The results were remarkably good.

WATCHING THE MARGINS OF YOUR PHOTOGRAPH
If you camera ends up producing images at 4.5x6 instead of 4x6, which most non-professional cameras do, you have to watch out how you shoot. Leave a little room on the long sides of your photographs so there is room for cropping. If you camera can be set for actually 4x6 or 5x7 shooting, by all means, set it that way. Most cameras cannot be set in such a manner. If you do that, then you won't have to worry about just sticking your card in the machine at the drug store because it won't be cropping away anything important.

TAKE THE TIME TO SET UP YOUR OWN PHOTOGRAPHS
It will take much less time than you think to learn how to use an image processing program. It will even turn out to be fun for you. You'll be able to quickly get your photographs to look just the way you want. You'll also be able quickly correct problems like red-eye and other little problems that sometimes pop up. PhotoShop's program for home users, ELEMENTS, is a spectacular program and you should have it on your computer if you take a large amount of digital photographs.

DIGITAL OPENS A WHOLE NEW WORLD, BUT DON'T OVER-DO IT
One of the wonderful things about digital photography is that the cards that record the photos can come in very large sizes, allowing you to take hundreds and hundreds of photographs. Therefore, you can snap many shots of a single subject in an attempt to get one really excellent one. You'll need to be disciplined, however, and willingly delete those that don't match up to what you really want. With a digital camera, you can delete as you go along. Do it! If you put the card in your computer's card reader with all those photographs still on it, you're creating an organizational work-flow nightmare for yourself.

GET OUT AND EXPERIMENT
If you have a digital camera and you're still afraid of it, get out and experiment. Take photographs of everything around your house. Get shots of the dog and the wood pile out back. Then put your card in the computer and play with your software. It certainly beats watching the blow-hard, Lou Dobbs. As a matter of fact, it beats virtually everything on TV.

SOME HELPFUL LINKS
Here are some helpful places to go on the Internet:

•Short Courses, an on-line library about digital photography, presents this on-line book about Displaying and Sharing Your Digital Photographs and another about Using Your Digital Camera. Both of these are worth reading.

•Internet Brothers also has a very brief and simple page on
Digital Photography

•How Stuff Works has a wonderful section on Digital Cameras and Photography, which explains in detail a lot of what I laid out above.

•Derrick Story presents the Top Ten Digital Photography Tips and I found these very helpful. You may want to take a look.

•Good, old Wikipedia has two thorough entries that you may find very helpful. One is on Digital Photography and the other is on the Digital Camera.

Though I use the massive Photoshop Suite (CS3) by Adobe, that company's inexpensive program, Photoshop Elements, is as powerful as almost anyone would want or need. Here's a review of Elements by MacWorld that will probably convince you to get it.

Don't be afraid of your digital camera. Get to know it better. Email me samples of your best stuff. I'd love to see what you're doing. The Short Course I recommended above (Displaying and Sharing Your Digital Photographs) will explain the most efficient way to email photos.

Can Women Do Everything?

Photo from istock.com by pointofocus...

Women should be leading our nation!
by Charlie Leck

I'm writing this with a few of the most wonderful women in mind. I haven't seen two of them in nearly fifty years; yet these days we are communicating a bit by email. I discover that they have turned out to be remarkable human beings. Fifty years ago they were quiet, retiring, shy and simple girls. Lord, I loved them that way. And now I love them the way they are. Dear, dear, Gretchen and Marion. What extraordinary classmates they were. They and my wife inspire me to write the following.

Somehow, during the last fifty years, the rules of the game have changed. Girls no longer exclusively take home-economics classes and they do not make up 95 percent of the typing classes in high school. Girls have changed. Women have changed. The world has changed and it is wonderful!

When I (personally) look for leadership on the most significant social and political issues facing our great nation, today I look first to the women of the nation. Women, very frankly, are more perceptive, more sensitive, more intuitive and more intelligent than the keenest of male leaders in the nation.

Why?

That is an extraordinarily good question. I have struggled with it; however, I think I have an answer. Women, for the most part, are smaller in ego. They are less worried about self-image. They are less involved in questions of failure and success. Women want what is right and just – what is deserved and completely fair!

Women are mothers! They want a bright future for their off-spring and for descendants over many generations to come.

Let that thought settle in for a moment. Women are mothers! It is not the same as saying men are fathers! Men will never understand this sense of something growing in their bodies – growing and growing and growing. Men will never understand the sense of two heart beats thumping away as one. Is it crazy to say that this gives women a different perspective on life?

Women are spectacular and extraordinary creatures!

Here are the facts, Jack! Read them and weep! Women are more sensible, more reasonable, more thoughtful about every single issue that affects the welfare of the general human race. They understand better the concept of protecting the planet. They have a greater sense of responsibility toward future generations.

Frankly, they ought to be in charge. If women were in charge, there would be far fewer wars. There would be more general peace. Little babies and small children would not be starving. Water supplies would not be contaminated. Nations would not be at war over issues of simple stupidity.

Women should be leading nations toward peace. Women should be leading the world. Only women can save the Earth from total destruction.

A Structure Weak at its Very Center

Middle America
by Charlie Leck

Lou Dobbs is starting to drive me crazy! Do you know who he is? He's one of the evening news celebrities on CNN. I actually agree with him most of the time; however, he's gotten so bombastic in his approach that he's starting to resemble all the idiots who are on the air over at FOX News. I can barely stand watching his show any more – and that's what it is – a show – and not really a newscast.

I think CNN must have been feeling some ratings pressure in its battle with FOX News. They've gone the way of more volume, more cynicism and more hard opinions on issues. Dobbs is followed in the evening by Rick Sanchez, with a show called Out in the Open. Sanchez so resembles the characters over on FOX that I cannot watch his show either. He does more shouting than Bill O'Reilly. What is CNN coming to? Why are they doing this?

Nevertheless, I must say I agree with the Lou Dobbs comments about the current WAR ON THE MIDDLE CLASS. It frightens me that the middle class may be disappearing in America and most of those who we formerly associated with that economic class are now shifting downward toward the lower income levels.

Soon I'll review Richard Russo's novel, Bridge of Sighs. For our current purpose, I'd like to quote the following:

"The middle, she said, was the real America, the America that mattered, the America that was worth fighting wars to defend. There was just the one problem with being in the fluid middle. You could move up, as we had done, but you could also move down."

That's the crux of the problem in America today. Traditionally, government has worked its butt off to protect the middle class and to give it strength. Today government is acting as if this grand, huge middle is of little importance. The middle is in trouble and it is drifting downwards toward economic weakness. At the same time, the wealthy, upper classes are growing stronger and stronger and more separate from those few who are left in the middle.

Here's the point: there are very few left in the middle. The middle has no strength. The middle is very weak. The middle usually controlled American elections. Who will control them now? The answer is that party who can most strongly appeal to the lower economic class in America. It is too reflexive an answer to say that this is the Democratic Party. Not necessarily. The Republican organization understands the situation and they gear up their campaign machinery to appeal to those who have not. They are very clever about it. They know that the have-nots live in a fantasy world, dreaming of the day when they will have all they need. That's what the lottery is all about. The Republicans pretend to be the lottery choice.

"After all," the lower economic classes say, "the rich are with us and we can be with them if we vote for them. They will deliver us from slavery."

In fact, the Republican Party could care less. It shows this by its position on social issues and its stance on global employment.

Here's the truth about the coming election: Barak Obama, Jon Edwards and Hillary Clinton are committed to the preservation and strengthening of the middle class. Even if you are not a part of that economic status, it will do you well to support the plan to strengthen it.

If there is not a strong middle class in America, America is lost. That may sound dramatic, but it is the plain truth. It is something the Republican Party does NOT understand.

I have friends and family who are a part of this economic group that formerly was the middle class. They are slipping backwards. I have been lucky. I am part of this fortunate class. I keep getting better off thanks to Vice President Chaney and his policies. Should I be happy? Give me a break! What good is my comfort if the nation is disintegrating? It is!

BLOGGING WITH GRANDKIDS IN THE HOUSE

First Things First
by Charlie Leck

What a lovely Thanksgiving holiday around our home this past weekend. Not only were some of the grandkids here, but there was a birthday celebration for one of them and a passel full of other kids were invited and the party was a huge success and no one wanted to go home. Hearing 7 or 8 kids tearing around our house is quite unusual, but the old place stood up to the test.

The problem I had was finding time on the computer to write my blog. I like to publish at least 3 fresh pieces each week and it has been disappointing to go 5 days without putting anything up. Now, however, with quiet restored, I’ll get back to posting something new every other day. Meanwhile…

If you need something to get you outraged,
this came in came in my email overnight and is just one more sign of an out of control justice and defense departments. We can never let our constitution, and the basic rights guaranteed by it, to be mocked. I post it here for you to read thoroughly.

ALL JOURNALISTS SHOULD BE OUTRAGED BY THIS--and let the corporate media and Congress know.

US Plans Case Against AP Photographer

By BRIAN MURPHY (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
November 19, 2007 8:09 PM EST

NEW YORK - The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi
court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is
refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented.

An AP attorney on Monday strongly protested the decision, calling the
U.S. military plans a "sham of due process." The journalist, Bilal
Hussein, has already been imprisoned without charges for more than 19
months.

In Washington, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell explained the
decision to bring charges now by saying "new evidence has come to light"
about Hussein, but said the information would remain in government hands
until the formal complaint is filed with Iraqi authorities.

Morrell asserted the military has "convincing and irrefutable evidence
that Bilal Hussein is a threat to stability and security in Iraq as a
link to insurgent activity" and called Hussein "a terrorist operative
who infiltrated the AP."

AP Associate General Counsel Dave Tomlin rejected the claim: "That's
what the military has been saying for 19 months, but whenever we ask to
see what's so convincing we get back something that isn't convincing at
all."

The case has drawn attention from press groups as another example of the
complications for Iraqis chronicling the war in their homeland -
including death squads that target local journalists working for Western
media and apparent scrutiny from U.S. intelligence agents.

A public affairs officer notified the AP on Sunday that the military
intends to submit a written complaint against Hussein that would bring
the case into the Iraqi justice system as early as Nov. 29. Under Iraqi
codes, an investigative magistrate will decide whether there are grounds
to try Hussein, 36, who was seized in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi
on April 12, 2006.

Tomlin said the defense for Hussein is being forced to work "totally in
the dark."

The military has not yet defined the specific charges against Hussein.
Previously, the military has pointed to a range of suspicions that
attempt to link him to insurgent activity.

The AP also contends it has been blocked by the military from mounting a
comprehensive defense for Hussein, who was part of the AP's Pulitzer
Prize-winning photo team in 2005.

Soon after Hussein was taken into custody, the AP appealed to the U.S.
military either to release him or bring the case to trial - saying there
was no evidence to support his detention. However, Tomlin said that the
military is now attempting to build a case based on "stale" evidence and
discredited testimony. He also noted that the U.S. military
investigators who initially handled the case have left the country.

The AP says various accusations were floated unofficially against
Hussein and then apparently withdrawn with little explanation.

Tomlin said the AP has faced chronic difficulties in meeting Hussein at
the Camp Cropper detention facility in Baghdad and that its own
intensive investigations of the case - conducted by a former federal
prosecutor, Paul Gardephe - have found no support for allegations he was
anything other than a working journalist in a war zone.

"While we are hopeful that there could be some resolution to Bilal
Hussein's long detention, we have grave concerns that his rights under
the law continue to be ignored and even abused," said AP President and
CEO Tom Curley.

"The steps the U.S. military is now taking continue to deny Bilal his
right to due process and, in turn, may deny him a chance at a fair
trial. The treatment of Bilal represents a miscarriage of the very
justice and rule of law that the United States is claiming to help Iraq
achieve. At this point, we believe the correct recourse is the immediate
release of Bilal," Curley added.

Hussein, a native of Fallujah and a member of a prominent clan in the
western province of Anbar, began work for the AP in the summer of 2004
as the anti-U.S. insurgency was gaining ground.

On the morning of April 12, 2006, Hussein was out buying bread for
breakfast when he heard a blast on a nearby street in Ramadi, according
to the AP investigation. He dashed home and allowed several strangers to
follow - as was customary to offer shelter during unrest in the city.
Marines later arrived and used Bilal's apartment as a temporary
observation post.

Hussein told the AP he was later taken into custody by the Marines who
also confiscated equipment including a laptop and satellite phone. The
guests he invited into his apartment amid the chaos were also detained.

On Monday, Morrell said two guests in the apartment that day were
"suspected insurgents" and that one of them later was convicted in a
court of having a phony ID. It was unclear whether he remained in
custody or was released.

Calls for Hussein's freedom have been backed by groups such as the
Committee to Protect Journalists.

Tomlin said it remains unclear what accusations, evidence and possible
witnesses will be presented by military prosecutors in Baghdad.

"They are telling us nothing. ... We are operating totally in the dark,"
said Tomlin, who added that the military's unfair handling of the case
is "playing with a man's future and maybe his life."

Although it's unclear what specific allegations may be presented against
Hussein, convictions linked to aiding militants in Iraq could bring the
death penalty, said Tomlin.

U.S. military officials in Iraq did not immediately respond to AP
questions about what precise accusations are planned against Hussein.

Previously, the military has outlined a host of possible lines of
investigation, including claims that Hussein offered to provide false
identification to a sniper seeking to evade U.S.-led forces and that
Hussein took photographs that were synchronized with insurgent blasts.

The AP inquiry found no support for either of those claims. The bulk of
the photographs Hussein provided the AP were not about insurgent
activity; he detailed both the aftermath of attacks and the daily lives
of Iraqis in the war zone. There was no evidence that any images were
coordinated with the insurgents or showed the instant of an attack.

Tomlin also questioned the U.S. military claims that Hussein's fate
rests solely with Iraqi justice. Noting that Hussein has been in the
sole custody and control of the U.S. military, he said it's up to
military prosecutors to lay out the allegations and "it's impossible
that they don't have a specific set of charges drawn up."

Gardephe, now a New York-based attorney, said the AP has offered
evidence to counter the allegations so far raised by the military. But,
he noted, it's possible the military could introduce new charges at the
hearing that could include classified material.

"This makes it impossible to put together a defense," said Gardephe, who
is leading the defense team and plans to arrive in Baghdad next week.
"At the moment, it looks like we can do little more than show up ... and
try to put together a defense during the proceedings."

One option, he said, is to contend that the Pentagon's handling of
Hussein violated Iraqi legal tenets brought in by Washington after the
fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Among the possible challenges: AP claims
that Hussein was interrogated at Camp Cropper this year without legal
counsel.

Hussein is one of the highest-profile Iraqi journalists in U.S. custody.

In April 2006 - just days before Hussein was detained - an Iraqi
cameraman working for CBS News was acquitted of insurgent activity.
Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein was held for about a year after being
detained while filming the aftermath of a bombing in the northern city
of Mosul.

Tomlin, however, said that freedom for Bilal Hussein, who is not related
to the cameraman working for CBS, isn't guaranteed even if the judge
rejects the eventual U.S. charges. The military can indefinitely hold
suspects considered security risks in Iraq.

"Even if he comes out the other side with an acquittal - as we certainly
hope and trust that he will - there is no guarantee that he won't go
right back into detention as a security risk."

Thank Goodness

Is Thanksgiving a great holiday, or what?
by Charlie Leck

Almost everyone we know across this nation considers Thanksgiving Day his or her favorite holiday. We're with them. We think Thanksgiving is the only holiday to which we actually look forward. If we were to ask all these folks the reason for this, their answers would be pretty much the same as ours. Thanksgiving Day is laid back and it's all about family and very close friends. There is no pressure to come up with gifts. Just relax and enjoy the day. Granted, there is lots of work involved. It's not easy to lay out a feast for a dozen or more people.

We're going through the pre-Thanksgiving period right now and it is pressure packed. Our list is long. Get the yard looking as good as possible. Clean the entire house top to bottom. Take the shopping list to the grocery store (boy, is this a job). Line up the perfect wine and an acceptable beer. Figure out the seating arrangements. Around here, it's the woman of the household who goes nuts getting everything ready. She truly loves Thanksgiving and she gets very excited about seeing family and friends, but she puts enormous pressure on herself to make everything just perfect. It was pretty intense this past weekend. We think the vacuum cleaner motor must have been worn out. It was running constantly. The whip the mighty woman carried was cracking pretty loudly. It kept us jumping – at least as well as an over-weight, old-timer can jump.

On Thursday it will all be worth it. Grandkids will show up with shiny, beautiful faces. Daughters and deeply loved and appreciated sons-in-law will be on hand. A few friends will be here, too.

And, as we gather at the table, anxious to dig in to the incredible feast prepared by many people, we will bring everything to a halt. We won't ask for time to pray; however, we will suggest we all spend a brief moment thinking about something very specific.

Dear, departed Grandpa Wakefield always had thanksgiving dinner at his lovely farm house. There would be 20 to 30 gathered. Grandpa would always bring everyone to a stop at one point during the day and ask that each person say something special in accordance with his instruction. One year it was: "Express what you are most thankful for about this past year." Another year it was: "What are your goals for the coming year?"

All the diners were always embarrassed and it was difficult to get the expressions from the gathered crowd; but one by one each of us would respond to Grandpa's request and it was always touching and wonderful. It was also the moment each of us always remembered about our Thanksgiving Day.

Since Grandpa died, we've tried to pick up this tradition, but we don't have his "balls" about it. Grandpa never got embarrassed. He was totally sincere and he expected people to respond sincerely. Grandpa Wakefield made Thanksgiving wonderful for us and we will always remember this wonderful thing about him.

In Grandpa's spirit this year, we'll ask everyone to think about him and all our memories of him and to say something about what they remember most about him. This is the first time we've given gatherers an advanced warning.

We hope you have a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving Day!