Giving thanks

We believe we are thankful for the things which make us happy or benefit us. And it turns out we are thankful for those we thought we had nothing in common with. Like the Puritans. I, for one, don't particularly revere Harvard Commencement Day. Yet, without the Puritans' abhorrence and prohibition of the celebrations of Christmas, I might not be sitting here counting my blessings in cyberspace on Thanksgiving Day, 2010.

(It must be true; I read it on Wikipedia, the ACLU website and the Qumran Bet website).

So, on this day I reflect on the many, named and unnamed, whose interactions have enriched my blog, from those in the past year who took the time to answer my questions, to send me a comment, to inform me on the legislative process, to muse with me for the umpteenth time on whether the holding on agency jurisdiction in Prestige Builders can be reconciled with River Sound, to kick me in the butt when I wasn't covering a case or a topic in a timely manner, to those whose unwitting stray comment set in motion a blog post, or whose gracious civility while taking the time to utterly disagree with me was enlightening and welcome, or whose provocative rudeness made me value those possessing the previously-mentioned gracious civility even more, and to those who (gasp) have thanked me.

And in (almost) no order other than alphabetical, (in future arbitrary listings I promise reverse alphabetical order for the alphabetically-impaired, think David Wrinn,) I give thanks to:

Matt Berger, the Honorable Kevin Booth, Beth Cavagna, Jeff Dowd, David Drewry, Dave Emerson, Robert Fromer, Adam Gutcheon, Sean Hayden, Peter Hearn, John Karas, Michael Klein, Dwight Merriam, Ken Metzler, Joan Nichols, Ed O'Connell, Tom ODell, Ed Pawlak, Jeff Pimentel, Matt Ranelli, Chris Roy, David Sherwood, Brian Smith, Steve Tessitore, Karl Wagener, Josh Wilson, Darcy Winther, David Wrinn, Chris Zurcher

and Barbara Brooks (August 25, 1952 - October 25, 2010) in whose sisterly shadow I lived every day of my life until quite recently.

There will be other days for more wetlands cases involving the denial of certification, for training videos, for splitting hairs over the texts of court decisions.

Now, on with the beets bread pies . . . .