Grateful for NM’s natural wonders

State columnist

Let’s face it: Thanksgiving traditions are based on an incomplete memory. Maybe the Puritans sat down and ate with Native Americans a time or two, but they actually brought more death and destruction to the tribes they encountered than they did turkey and dressing.

But it’s the sentiment, not historic significance, that makes Thanksgiving special. I think most Americans are believers and optimists, so taking time to give thanks is simply part of our better nature.

Therefore, in keeping with the sentiment, allow me to offer up some thanks of my own:

I’m thankful for having made my way out here to New Mexico. I moved to Las Vegas a decade ago, and after several great years running the newspaper here, I ended up carving out a niche for myself by helping other community newspapers with a variety of services. And while I’m not running a newspaper of my own these days, I’m both thankful and proud to still be able to call myself a newspaperman.

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What’s more, I’m thankful for all the newspaper readers out there. If you want to locate the most informed and involved people in your town, find the newspaper readers.

They’re the movers and shakers in your community, and they stay informed by reading your hometown newspaper.

I’m so very thankful this year’s elections are over. They seemed particularly vitriolic this year, undoubtedly because of all the campaign ads that ran on radio and television.

The overkill of this year’s elections may be the best argument so far against the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which took campaign spending to unprecedented levels. Money, not the truth, won out in this election cycle.

Still, I’m thankful that, as hard as some tried to do otherwise, no one actually bought themselves an election. Right?

I’m thankful that money isn’t my God, though it obviously is for others. I won’t say or do anything for a buck, nor do I believe financial success is the most important thing one can achieve in life. I’m grateful that I was raised better than that.

That said, I appreciate rich people who give back and poor people who give more, at least proportionately. I’m thankful for people who dedicate themselves to making life better for everybody, not just an elite few.

I’m thankful that we’re a minority-majority state. I think it makes us more sensitive and less sensitive at the same time, and turns us into something of a trendsetter, since America as a whole is growing more colorful each day.

And I’m thankful for the Carlsbad Caverns, the White Sands, the Rio Grande Gorge, the Black Range, the Capulin Volcano, the Tent Rocks, and all the other natural wonders in our state. No matter where you live in New Mexico, chances are you’re not far away from some amazing rock formation, or a hidden canyon, or some other gem — all under some of the biggest, bluest skies in the U.S.A.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

[email protected]