On what may be the saddest Thanksgiving of my life, after the recent passing of Marjorie, my true soul mate, wife, partner, love, teacher, listener, fan, supporter, and of course a loving mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, I still find that I have much to thank our loving God for.
(Yes, I know I ended that too-long sentence with a preposition.)

First, I thank God and the greatest team of medical professionals anywhere for the miracle that I am still alive, mobile (sorta), mentally functioning (sorta), and able to write this note of thanks. I am actually living better electrically, because my pacemaker and defibrillator are actively controlling my heart rate. Yay.

And I am grateful for my wonderful family, who have taken a gut punch just as hard as the one I sustained, yet have still managed to provide superb support to this old man.

I also thank God that I live in a beautiful, historic house, the attic of this beautiful house to be exact, in the Holy City of Charleston, a consistent winner of Conde Nast awards for being one of the world’s favorite travel destinations.

I am thankful that I am planning to enjoy a wonderful Cracker Barrel Thanksgiving “Heat and Serve” dinner for four adults and two very young great grandchildren. Yes, we will have four generations of Scoolers at our small Thanksgiving feast. That alone is a blessing worth noticing.

Finally, for today at least, I thank God and all who have been present with Marjorie and me to enjoy at least 55 Thanksgiving dinners together.
Why not 61, you ask. You were married for 61 years.

Well, during my aircrew years I missed a few. I teased often in those days that I spent some of those Thanksgivings in Turkey. How is that for juxtaposition.
(Yes, that is a word. Or a woid, as they say in Brooklyn.)

I also missed one while serving as an EC 47 navigator in Viet Nam in 69 and 70. And yes, thank you, Lord, for letting me come home from that fiasco to Marjorie, Christine, and Jim. Jeffrey was not here yet. He arrived in 71 because I came home in 70.

So that is my very partial list of things I am truly thankful for at 3:15 in the morning on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 2025.

I am going to try to go back to sleep for a while now. I am looking forward to seeing some of you in about eight or nine hours.

Again, Happy Thanksgiving.

Enuf.