Thanksgiving 2012

It is never "Turkey Day" for me. Nor have I ever engaged in the mass spending spree known as "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday."

I don't know why more isn't made of the fact that the whole holiday was based on giving thanks to the Native Americans who could have just shrugged and gone about their harvest festivities, ignoring the poor Pilgrims unable to grow enough of their own food that first year in a New World. I'll bet there are more than a few Native Americans today who wished their ancestors hadn't been so generous.

And I've sat at my share of Thanksgiving dinners, but have yet to hear any thanks given to the original inhabitants of this continent and have kept mum when I wanted to squeal, "Okay, okay. So thank the Lord, too, but give credit where credit's due!" I try to be a polite guest.

In some ways, though, every day is Thanksgiving for me; I am thankful for so much. The health and well-being of loved ones, all the love in my life, and life itself, which has been (so far!) nothing but serendipitous. It has been so blessed and yet I have no idea why. Sure, a little of it was effort, but so much was just chance, circumstance and other factors I had no way of controlling.

Like growing up in different cultures and countries, in different languages. (Others have to spend years to become fluent in a second language.)

Like learning to be self-sufficient at a young age. (My non-English speaking mom was not much help in the U.S.)

Like losing a father and growing up real fast. (I mostly by-passed that horrible disco-n-coke era.)

Like NOT getting hired by any Japanese company post-graduation but somehow stumbling into what turned into an amazing career.

Through that, I met hundreds of fabulous people, both famous and unknown, found and learned to keep great friends. Heck, even my posture became better through all those on-camera jobs. And last but not least, finding Big Dog through that career and getting a lifetime of adventures and challenges.

The fatalist in me is worried it will all come to a crashing halt one of these days. The optimist in me says it never will because no matter how bad things get, I will always get something special out of it.