Thanksgiving Thoughts For 2008

As we approach the Thanksgiving Season for this year of 2008, I want to leave some thoughts of thanks that I have been given.

I am very thankful to have been born into the Moore Family. Yes, I had a rough beginning as my father died when I was six years old. I don’t remember my life up to that point but I would imagine it was pretty good. Two years later my siblings were split up to several of the brothers and sisters of our father’s and I and my older brother, Ben, went to live with our grandparents.

Rev. Jesse I. and Mattie Moore had 12 children in 20 years time and now have taken on grandchildren of ages 10 and 8. You’d think they had done enough. Grandpa petitioned the court to allow him to place the five children into homes within his family instead of the foster homes we were headed for if he hadn’t intervened . He didn’t want any of his grandchildren to go to foster care and was willing to take on two of the five to raise as his own. He was a pastor of the Church of the Nazarene in Celina, Ohio and was nearing retirement. Think about his situation and see if you would be willing to do the same thing!

I am very thankful for my Uncle Ray and Aunt Edith Moore who lived in Kansas City, Missouri. They came to visit Ray’s folks one week in August 1949 and when they returned home they wrote a letter asking me to come and live with them for my last three years of high school.
Grandpa said it was my decision. Grandma was ill and he told me that if I decided to stay, that would be OK with him. I decided to go Kansas City to finish my high school years. Because of that, I met my future wife, Ann. I often wondered what my life would have turned out to be if I had stayed in Ohio.

The Korean Conflict was going on when I graduated from high school making me very ripe for the draft into the army. If I would attend college, they would defer my draft until I graduated as long as I maintained a “C” average. Thankfully, I did. I was not a “student” and wasn’t planning on going to college except for the push from the government.

I am thankful for Pasadena Nazarene College for accepting me and for helping me get a college degree which made a big difference in my working years. I am very thankful for Bob & Mildred Edwards who prepared their daughter Ann for adulthood and who I married after my Junior year. She has added so much to my life that it would take several more stories to tell it correctly.

I graduated in 1956 two months after our son, Rick, was born. As a matter of coincidence, President Ike Eisenhower signed a bill exempting fathers from the draft. So I am very thankful for Rick joining our family and for the president’s timing. I am also very thankful for Brenda coming along three years later completing our family.

I am very thankful for C. F. Braun & Company and the Fluor Company for laying me off during the recessions of 1957 and 1958. That gave me an opportunity to join the State Farm Insurance family and spend 37 years with them retiring in 1996 with a pension.

Then we added in-laws -- Anne Jennings married Rick and they have Emily and Eric which gave us our first two grandchildren. Brenda married Scott Ostrander and they have Hannah and Rachel giving us a total of four grandkids. Aren’t we lucky?

I have lived a different life but a blessed and thankful one. I never considered that my life was any different from the normal. So many things had to happen to put everything in place to bring me to this time. I’m a lucky fortunate man! Somebody up there likes me!

Happy Thanksgiving Season!