Happy Thanksgiving...

I've had an extremely pleasant Thanksgiving, and there is still an episode of Grey's Anatomy coming up. Among the highlights...

-- The drive from Waco to Chandler was about as beautiful as any I've ever seen. It started off by me being passed in Bellmead by one of my newest favorite people, Britt Duke, who is another fellow native of the Piney Woods of East Texas. He's from Gilmer and a lot faster driver, so we didn't stay together long. But back to the drive...I love heading east. It's only around two hours away, but it feels like a whole new world. The trees were beautiful, the drivers friendly, and most of the cop in the tiny Highway 31 towns were home with their families.

-- Here is a funny story. As I get out of my car at Uncle Johnny's farm and walk toward the few people already assembled, I hear Uncle Sonny (my dad's oldest brother) speak out, "Hey Craig! I read that thing you wrote on the internet." My feet kept walking toward him but my heart sank and my inner being stopped in it's tracks and I thought "Oh...My...God! My life is over, my family has found my blog." I immediately began an attempt to mentally review every post I've written since I began this blog in May of '02. Fear overcame me as I remembered every expletive, every theologically and socially unorthodox position I'd ever taken, and every time I've said something that may reflect poorly on my family.

It's an overstated fact, but familial relationships are, well, complicated. I think our friendships are so much easier to handle because we can begin them. Of course we bring all of our pasts to the relationship, but the friendships actually have a beginning and start fresh. Our families begin at our beginning and their past is our past and present. All that to say, it's strange and a little scary when I think about my family reading the things I write.

But, you know, I got over it. I remembered what I wrote a few days ago about families and how the great thing about them is that you are stuck with them and they are stuck with you. I decided that I didn't care if my family knew what I wrote. It might get awkward, but that's ok. (Although, throughout the entire day I was looking at everyone wondering if they were a reader and expecting to be shunned or treated differently, but that never happened.)

Incidentally, I believe the thing Uncle Sonny (who got the post from Uncle Johnny,) read was this post from a couple of Thanksgiving's ago. I think it was actually pretty flattering (except, perhaps, to my mom,) so no harm done.

-- After that initial terrifying experience, the day was wonderful. The weather was beautiful, the food bountiful, and the children especially playful and excited at seeing the new goat on the farm. A couple of hours into it I told myself, "Wow, I'm really enjoying this."

-- One of my Thanksgiving traditions over the past few years has been listening to the first half of the Cowboys game on my way home to Waco, and watching the last half on television. There is a new savior in Big D...















...and it's a great time to be a Cowboys fan. Tony Romo plays so well and looks like he's having so much fun, like a kid playing a pick up game, that I feel like we could go somewhere this year. I just wish they would have started him at the beginning.

-- I must now find something to eat for dinner before Grey's comes on.

-- I hope your Thanksgiving has been as good as mine, and for those of you I know, I can't wait until we meet again.