This Thanksgiving, what can we possibly have to be grateful for in a year marked by forest fires of unprecedented size and destructiveness in the West; a pandemic that has killed over 770,000 Americans; and an attack on the Capitol in Washington by a violent mob intent on overturning our democratic election?
Yet, according to Rutger Bregman’s “Humankind,” the more tumultuous the year, the more we have to be thankful for. As research detailed in his book shows, human beings, rather than turning into cynical, hopeless savages following wars and other catastrophes, have historically always endured, adapted, recovered and moved ahead with renewed hope.
“Most people, deep down, are pretty decent,” Bregman writes.
What follows, therefore, is a Thanksgiving list that affirms the Bregman dictum.
First, thanks and praise are owed to Lady Gaga, not just for her musical talents and eye-catching fashion, but also for her embrace of ailing American icon Tony Bennett in musical collaboration on what will be his last album, “Love for Sale.” Of course, it is a profit-making venture. Nonetheless, with grace and reverence, she has inspired Bennett’s amazing, if short-lived, escapes from the tyranny of Alzheimer’s through the memory-sparking miracle of music, while she has helped raise awareness, as well as research funds, for this dreadful disease.
Speaking of miracles, we can also be grateful to Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, the only man in NFL history to throw 600 touchdowns and, at age 43, win a seventh Super Bowl. He is playing great again in his 22nd season, in a sport in which most quarterbacks’ careers last but four. Thank you, Tommy Boy, for inspiring and enabling me and other seniors to think, if not feel, 20 years younger.
A big thank-you is owed to Frances Haugen, data engineer and former Facebook executive, for blowing the whistle on Facebook’s express mission of prioritizing profits over safety of its users, especially of children, and for knowingly serving as the vehicle for the lies, propaganda and hate that have been ripping our country apart. Thanks especially for calling out the hypocritical affectation of innocence we’ve become accustomed to seeing on the face of Mark Zuckerberg at congressional hearings.
Thirsty thanks to Connecticut’s Bill Shufelt and John Walker for founding the Athletic Brewing Co., among the first American breweries with a recipe for palatable nonalcoholic beer. Last year, after swearing off what was medicine-y water with bubbles in my New Year’s resolutions, these two entrepreneurial saints answered my prayers by concocting craft beers with names such as Free Wave and Upside Dawn, which are absent the alcohol, yet still possess the sudsy and resinous beer flavor I love.
Besides making lots of money, 2% of which is donated to the preservation of green spaces and nature trails, the two master brewers have done the world a solid by enabling those who must avoid alcohol entirely, or others who want an IPA at lunch and a clear head the rest of the day, to still enjoy one of the world’s oldest adult beverages.
At least 60% of us should say thanks to Robert Glaser, ex-Microsoft executive and founder of RealNetworks, the pioneer of livestreaming, whose experimental internet audio broadcast of a baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and the New York Yankees in 1995, paved the way for YouTube, Netflix and Apple TV, among other streaming services (which 60% of Americans are said to use). Movie lovers in the 1950s who were thrilled for a double feature on a Saturday night could have never imagined that people streaming at home in their La-Z-Boys in 2021 would have 14,000 films to choose from, and that’s just on Amazon Prime.
THE COUNTRY’S utmost gratitude goes out to U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who at grave risk to her political career has spoken out against the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, in a display of courage and character in the face of Donald Trump’s cowardly sycophants in the Senate. Cheney’s bravery is reminiscent of the heroism of legendary Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, R-Maine, who called out the scurrilous lies and “Red Scare” conspiracy theories of one of her own party leaders, Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wis., with this telling proclamation: “I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny — fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear.”
Finally, over the course of a long life, my favorite hour has been just after dusk in summertime, heading home across a Wisconsin lake in a fishing boat, when the first of the fruit bats are peeling out of the woods, gliding low above the water, vacuuming mosquitoes. On a collision course with my bow, they veer away at the last second like Navy jet fighters, as water blends with stars and sky and rapture fills my heart. And today I wish to say thanks to the scientists who invented vaccines that enabled me to survive COVID-19 this past year, and to live to see more of those perfect endings to such glorious days.
Happy Thanksgiving!
About the writer: David McGrath is an emeritus English professor at the College of DuPage and the author of “South Siders.”
