LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Posted November 20, 2022
Dear Editor:
Thank God for freedom of speech and press. It became a great American institution in
December 1791! Those founding fathers called it the First Amendment to our Constructional
Republic because they recognized a Biblical pattern of nations who acknowledged their Creator.
If you cannot trust that legacy where do you look for a better one? Some call America a grand
experiment probably to satisfy the sciences which abound in a free nation. Like most nations in
history there comes confusion and rebellion. Many no longer exist. We can do without repeating
that history out of ignorance or conquest.
This writer has lived long enough to see such patterns and their consequences. The “rancor and
division in our country” stated in your editorial are such consequences. Listening to so much
balderdash from the news media, not only do they claim it but promote it. News and history
should be clues to a future worth living. Those pioneers of 1620 truly applied their convictions
and established a colony of grateful people on the east coast. In 1621 those who survived their
first year in a new country celebrated. We know it as Thanksgiving and is among the Holydays
celebrated in America. Yes, it is Holyday in place of Holiday; an actual USA Federal day of
observation. A review of President George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of October
03, 1789 should suffice. Dare we not forget.
Americans will celebrate again on November 24 a very honorable feast called Thanksgiving, in
spite of the commercialism and competing distractions of media. Families will make the effort to
meet together and enjoy great times and meals. Is once a year enough for citizens in a free nation
to Thank God for another year of life and opportunity? Probably not but it continues as a great
tradition. Even though we have not visited all 50 States it is amazing to live here with the
opportunities taken for granted.
Back in the 1990s as we drove across the plains I finally
recognized “for amber waves of grain” from a memorable song. The winds were literally waving
the grain fields around in the open plains. Thanks to Katherine Lee Bates who was overwhelmed
and inspired in the Rocky Mountains in the summer of 1893 and subsequently (1913) produced
“America the Beautiful” and another permanent memory among so many available in America.
Let’s keep it that way!
Sincerely,
Ernie & Ruth Poani
Edinburg, IL 62531
