Gearing up the gratitude.

With Thanksgiving nearly upon us in the United States, it behooves us to remember things for which we should have gratitude. Gratitude is the best cure for many social and emotional illnesses, which is one reason it is so despised by people who hate America. 

So first, I'm grateful that socialism was pushed further away from the body politic by the results of our last election.  

Closer to home, I'm grateful that the early snowstorm we had last week is a melted memory now. As it turned out, on our block we missed having long-term issues by a matter of inches. 

The local utility company is pretty good about getting out there when the sun is warm, taking down branches that will fall on power lines when the weather turns cold. But when the problem is a tree more than a dozen feet into someone's property, I don't think they have the authority to go tree-cutting. When our early storm hit, some trees still had leaves, weighing down the limbs, which subsequently fell off. And in one case, an elderly tree was entirely weighed down. 

Timber!!!

As you can see, it landed a ways over the curb, into the street. The homeowner has yet to chop it up; he may be pricing the job out. Fortunately it did not go far out enough into the street to be a danger to traffic.

Even more fortunately, it literally missed the power lines by inches. 

It looks like the tiny upper branches probably brushed the lines as the whole thing came down. If it had been just a little taller, lights out. 

We came close to having a bunch of houses without energy as Thanksgiving approached, with a problem that couldn't be resolved until the downed tree was completely removed. 

So I'm grateful for electricity and the genius of those who learned how to harness it for the benefit of humanity and civilization. And I'm grateful that the weather did not result in a local cut of electricity. And I'm grateful too that Communism has not taken over our country, because in many ways that means all the lights go out.