When I was a kid, I really did feel like life was unfair to me.  So many more had so much more than did I.  And I did feel trapped.  I was the poor little country boy in a city of successful social climbers.

Today, I am thankful for growing up in the only rental house on Beverly Avenue in Jacksonville, Florida. I did my best back then to transform our sand spur farm into a landscaped lawn showplace worthy of the perfectly manicured lawn at the Mason family home up the block.   I learned what I know of lawns and gardening there.  I failed to transform that sand and weeds and spurs.  But I learned.

I am thankful for the pathetic basketball goal made from a bent and rounded coat hanger jammed into the top of my brother’s bedroom door and the balled up socks we used as a basketball.  I learned to shoot there, and I am damned good at shooting.

And.  It was time that I spent with my brother.

I am thankful for Pic N Save Discount Drugstores.  As a child, I didn’t do much with my dad.  But Sundays were Pic N Save “browsing” days with him.  We never bought much more than a box of Hav-A-Tampa cigars and toilet paper, but I browsed with my dad.  And I learned to enjoy watching folks - Pic N Save shoppers - along the way.

I am thankful for Ozzie, Harriet, Ward and June.  During an otherwise abnormal childhood, they often centered me.

I am thankful for yacht clubs and backyard tennis courts and all the ostentatious things the fortunate Jacksonville ones seemed to hold over my young head.  They allowed me to hate the wealthy while a child.  Without knowing hate as a child, it’s hard to know love as an adult.

I am thankful that, from the ‘60s, things changed.  I grew up.

I am thankful for the Jacksonville blue bloods who in their dying years showed that change is okay and that status is something you really cannot purchase.  It’s something your heart builds.  The wealthy grew up, too.

I am thankful for my Standard Definition television. 

And for friends.