A TRUE THANKSGIVING STORY

PART 1

What I am thankful for this year:

Friendship, kindness, understanding, compassion, making amends.

I have thought about sharing this story for ages.

But the time seems right.

Bear with me.

More than a quarter century ago, I made the leap from obscure editorial assistant, fresh out of journalism school kid, to full-time pop music critic at a major newspaper.

I replaced the friend of the paper's TV & radio critic.

I was talented, but was very young, not very confident, not from the city I was working in and maybe overly sensitive.

The TV-radio guy was very talented, darn near as young as me, very confident, from the city the major newspaper was located in and very brash at the time.

He threw me more than a few digs, even though I barely knew him...and ironically, had a working friendship with his new bride -- because we both toiled in the same suburban bureau for the big paper.

I ended up moving on from the pop music critic life and stuck with the paper in beats more suited for my ability and married life as a caregiver to a wonderful wife who uses a wheelchair for mobility.

The more polished TV-Radio critic moved to another City awhile after a very public and ugly incident involving crude radio personalities and out of bounds comments they made about his wife.

Fast forward 25 years and I'm in a blue period, getting over the death of my father - a 40-year newspaperman in the Ohio town I grew up in -- and feeling down over a bout of pain my wife was going through long after a major surgery.

I thought about my old paper and the grudge I held against the brash critic that threw his muttered digs at me in the newsroom hallways.

I found his contact info online and vented....and vented...and vented.

I told him how unkind his cuts were....and really went so far off the deep end that I said nasty things about him (only I was now around age 50 and should have been able to maturely share without stooping to that low level.)

I pushed the send button and felt there was a 99% chance that I had written the note only for my own therapeutic reasons. The person I emailed to would either never reply or zap back a terse "get over it, whiny jackass" email.

A couple days passed...I re-immersed in life and....and the phone rang while I was at a client’s office.

I almost ignored it, since it was an unfamiliar number on my cell -- most likely a telemarketer ignoring the do not call list.

(PART 2 TOMORROW, ON THANKSGIVING DAY) 

WHY CAN'T WE ALL GET ALONG?

A MESSAGE OF LOVE FROM ISTANBUL

It's a Moslem woman. Donald Trump and other right wing reactionary crazies have told me all I need to know. She's up to no good. She hates America, Christianity and small animals. She probably has a suicide bomb under that hijab.

This can't end well. Poor little cat. This Moslem monster will probably twist its head off and drink its blood in some kind of Godless ritual.

But wait. She seems to be gently petting the little creature. Like the millions of strays on the streets of Istanbul, this sweet purring kedi is getting affection. The locals, an overwhelming majority of whom are Moslem, are famous for being kind to animals. A recent award-winning film documented the uncommon kindness shown to stray cats in Istanbul.

So maybe Trump and the bigoted people who would ban Moslems from entering our nation of immigrants and otherwise demonize followers of one of the major religions of the world are out of their mind. Or maybe they simply cannot do math. Maybe they never learned that a tiny fraction of evil people who kill and maim in the name of Islam are just that -- a tiny fraction who are not emblematic of the peaceful overwhelming majority.

Let's face it. If a small fraction of monsters automatically tainted everyone from the much larger group, then Oklahoma City bomber terrorist (and bronze star-awarded military veteran) Timothy McVeigh's actions would mean we should ban all military vets from air travel and perhaps round them up in internment camps. But that would be insane. Just as insane as broadly defining all observant, loving, family-oriented Moslems as evil simply because a small fraction who allegedly share their core religion have misused it as an excuse for bombings.

So maybe this gentle woman, giving unconditional love to a little cat wandering the marbled and magnificent grounds of the Eyup Sultan Mosque, is more typical of Moslems. Maybe, if we worked daily to remove hate from the world, we could appreciate others. Maybe should try harder to teach our fellow Americans that someone whose religious garb is different is NOT a terrorist, evil doer or person to fear.

Sorry bigots, fanners of the flame and embracers of hate. I reject your venom. I respect all peaceful people. I thank the heavens above that I have a brain capable of recognizing statistical outliers -- so I don't brand every person of an identifiable group because of the malicious actions of a tiny few.

I see this Moslem woman for what she is: a loving fellow human being, taking time out of her busy day to give nurturing kindness to a cuddly critter. Maybe we could all try a little harder to coexist.