Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi everyone and I hope you are all enjoying a Happy Thanksgiving weekend! Whatever you did or are doing, from visiting with family and friends to shopping or just enjoying some free time I hope you all have at least something for which you are thankful.

Me, I am feeling especially blessed this year. I just got a promotion at work and I have a beautiful kind wife whom I love a great deal and a great family and many great friends. In fact I got to spend last Sunday with my wife's family, had drinks with some friends on Wednesday evening and had a wonderful dinner with my family on Thursday. On top of that I am enjoying a nice four day weekend!

While I am thankful for all of those things and many more, something that happened Thursday morning made me realize how much I have and how the little irritations in my life are so insignificant.

My wife volunteered us to deliver Thanksgiving meals for the Mozzell Sanders dinner on Thursday morning. I know she misses her mom so, and she wanted to do something nice in her honor. I love to do that kind of thing so I was excited that she got us involved.

So before we went to the church I figured we'd be delivering meals to the elderly for the most part, which for the most part turned out to be the case. However, a couple of deliveries really opened my eyes.

As expected our first sortie was to elderly folks who were all very appreciative, as was everyone, for the dinners. We did just three deliveries on our first sortie and we had plenty of time before we had to be at my folks house so we headed back to the church to see if they needed more dinners delivered. Turns out they did.

This time we were going to a place I honestly did not know existed in America, let alone Indianapolis. Maybe I'm naive, but the area we drove into looked more like what I would have expected in Vietnam during the war. The area, as a matter of record, was due east of the Raytheon plant, which used to be the Naval Avionics center over at 21st and Arlington.

Honestly, when we turned into the neighborhood I was not prepared for what I saw. The dwellings were mostly doubles that at one time probably served military personnel working at Naval Avionics. What they are now can only be described as severe urban blight. I found it interesting that the street names were Commodore and Nimitz and the like, fierce, Naval names. It looked like Chester Nimitz had just cruised his ship near and let loose with every canon and other weapon he had on the area.

Most of the buildings were boarded up. There were junk cars in the yards. No trees. An occasional broken toy scattered in a yard here and there. In fact it was the toys that really made me sad. Not one of the houses was decent. You know how you come across a bad neighborhood but you see at least one or two decent houses? Well that simply was not the case here. Every 100 feet we drove it seemed to get worse. I was in disbelief. Shocked.

Our first delivery was to a middle aged woman who probably had the “nicest” house on the block. Hey, she at least had a storm door on here house. She was nice, but I just couldn't help but feel sorry for her. The next delivery around the corner was 7 meals to a house that had no storm door and some kind of sheet for a window covering. A middle aged Mexican man answered the door. He thanked me, but I wondered how bad it could have been in Mexico for him to be here and living in this neighborhood.

As we drive out of the neighborhood I was silent, still stunned from what I had seen. Less than 3 blocks away we had another delivery to a very nice older neighborhood. Had I not known better I would have thought a tornado touched down in the one neighborhood and passed the next.

I decided to write this tonight because I haven't been able to get that sight out of my mind. I know there are people who have it a lot worse off than I so seeing some of the places we went didn't come as a surprise. But I just had no idea how bad some did have it. And who knows, they may not think they have it bad at all, but it made me sad and reflective. It makes me want to do something about it, but what? Did delivering meals to these people represent all that can be done?

While I could drone on all night about what I saw I'll cut it off here. Suffice it to say I was even more thankful for what I have after we got home. The good Lord willing I will never take what I have for granted again.

Love and peace to all!