Longtime So Cal resident Charles Carr is a nationally published journalist and playwright. His award-winning Southpaw column has appeared in college textbooks published by Macmillan, St. Martin's Press, Bedford, and others. Charles writes Southpaw for his hometown newspapers, The Times-Advocate and The Roadrunner.

America's best day

        This Thanksgiving is a particularly sentimental one for my wife, Marsi, and me. It was 30 years ago this week we bought our little ranch here. It's a two story log home, built by hand by the man who sold it to us, valley old-timer, Jeri Hindrelet. Jeri set down his tool apron every Christmastime to become the most-beloved of Santas. Sadly, he lost his life in a motorcycle accident a few years ago.

        Marsi and I had just come off four years of playing music on the road. Not long in town, we were hired by Lawrence Welk himself to be his resort's house band. After working at Welk's about a year, renting in Escondido, we started to long for a place of our own. A waitress at the resort told us about a nearby town named Valley Center. "Sounds like a mall or an industrial park or something," I said. She grinned. "You're in for a surprise. You have to see it. Just drive north out of Escondido. You'll know when you're there." I'll never forget all those years ago cresting the hill that first time. Bewilderment: How can this beautiful little valley be here? Where are the strip malls, the highways, the crazy traffic? And I had a sudden realization I would do just about anything to live in such a place, far away as the nearest star; and feeling a sudden, surprising desire to start a family here. Which is exactly what we did; two incredible kids. Family, country charm, the easy rural life; it's easy to understand why so many valley residents are so steadfastly protective of it.

        So jump ahead a few decades. It's three o'clock in the morning of the day you're likely reading this. Last Night. I'm in bed scribbling by moonlight on the pulpy cardboard backing of an empty steno pad. I believed I'd finished this piece days ago, but something just isn't right. Recently, images from the Middle East have filled my thoughts -- yours too, I'm sure. One evening, I saw a man joyously walking away from a relief truck, a loaf of bread in his hand. Most of the people there didn't get any food that day. He looked like he was thinking how lucky he was to have been standing in just the right place at the right time.

        So, if that was luck, what do you call the stuff we've got?

        I've worked hard to get what I have, yes, but I've been lucky, too. Like finding my '76 Strat in that little store. Like living in a town with a great little newspaper that was willing to take a chance on my first stuff. Like somehow wandering into my wife, knee-weak lovely then, much more than that now -- talented and giving beyond her own willingness to measure. Lucky to be living in this beautiful valley with its priceless rural life and perennially perfect weather. But a lot of that could fit under the "you make your own luck" category. There's another variety, the one Thanksgiving is all about. The kind of lucky we all were to have been born into this country, with its incalculable riches, hard-working ancestors, and unbounded opportunities. Or to be living in this amazing time, troubles and all. Or simply: to be living.

        Thanksgiving is America's best day because it embodies the very soul of a people overwhelmed with gratefulness for all they've been given. It's not the day we feel guilty we have more than others or complain someone has more than us. It's the day we all shake our heads in collective wonder and utter, simply, "Wow."

        I'm going to get some sleep now. From my family to yours, mansion or motor home, bless you today and every day. Do well. Succeed. We're all living the good life. We've already received more than most of us will ever be able to give. But let's try anyway. We don't ever want our children to wonder what this day was about.