Anything You Want

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.

— Arlo Guthrie

Last year, my wife and I spent three late-summer days in leafy Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the home of the now-derelict Alice's Restaurant. The restaurant's front door was padlocked, but I managed to sneak inside through the adjoining building (another greasy spoon, this in full operation). Not much to see of Alice's Restaurant except dust, cobwebs, and a few splintery tables and counters.

This year, I'm grateful for many things, not the least of which include the annual airplay of Arlo Guthrie's anti-war song—the only song about Thanksgiving that isn't insufferably schmaltzy. I'm also grateful Covid-19 hasn't ripped family members and friends from my life or denied me a cozy, if crimped, lifestyle.

Millions of other Americans can't say that.

Behavioral scientists believe gratitude, the "affirmation of goodness," survives from our primate-days, when we thrived by helping others and being helped in return.

Psychotherapists believe gratitude is as much a "practice" as an inborn emotion. Counting your blessings makes you upbeat, sociable and generous; combats depression; and wards off many unhealthy emotions, including envy, resentment, anger and contempt. AA calls the practice an "attitude of gratitude."

Although few Americans know or care, Gettysburg is the reason we celebrate Thanksgiving every year. The holiday—intended by Lincoln as a "day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficient Father who dwelleth in the Heavens"—was instituted by executive order three months after the Federal government's Pyrrhic victory outside the Pennsylvania town. 

Seven score and seventeen years later, we mark the holiday not by thanksgiving and prayer, but by overeating, watching football, and avoiding any mention of the "party of Lincoln."

Quite the comedown.

So let's set things aright.

This week, I challenge you to write down three good things that have come your way in 2020, and imagine your life without them. The items you list are up to you: they can be can be people, ideas, objects, or events. Anything you want.