As many readers know, I left Kentucky for another trip westward last Thursday to drop my wife off for a rotation through some preceptor sites for her school semester. It was a short trip, but I got to spend some time with old and new friends and play a couple of shows at old haunts.

All that made the 28 hours of road time over a four-day period worth it.

Driving by all of the recently-harvested fields where corn and soybeans had recently cast shadows and waved in the winds made me realize that I had a short week to assemble material for this issue of the Journal, got me thinking about Thanksgiving and made me remember the Thanksgiving holidays of my youth.

When I was a little guy, I looked forward to each Thanksgiving because I always liked getting together at my grandmother’s house in Leeco, where everyone would have a massive meal and I could see all of my cousins. Sometimes, we would even manage to not get into trouble while the half-dozen of us ran around or rode bikes around the large parking lot of what was once my grandparents’ country general store.

After moving to Nebraska at the age of 10, Thanksgivings changed largely because of the fact that it was many years before I celebrated the holiday with my mother’s family again. Once my friends and I were of the age to be trusted, we would always plan pheasant and quail hunting trips in the morning before family meals beckoned. I would hate to try to guess how many miles I have walked on Thanksgiving Days with a shotgun and a hunting dog with close buddies around to share the experience with.

I don’t hunt birds very often anymore,  and Thanksgiving holidays with my mother’s family aren’t nearly as fun as an adult. It’s nice to see everyone on occasion, and a quick glance in my direction will answer any questions about my relationship with food. But like most things, my growing-up process was able to transform those gatherings from “fun” into simply “nice.”

Today, I don’t anticipate Thanksgiving for either of the reasons above, or for any one specific reason at all, to be honest. I just try to remember to be thankful, which I will admit to everyone reading this — even though I’m not proud of it, it is true — I am not always very good at.

So I challenge myself every year to try to improve at being thankful for everything that I have, and for the opportunities I have been granted. I challenge all of you to try working on this trait as well. I just hope that it easier for all of you to stay on top of and remember than it is for me.

In fact, I will take a second and do so right now.

Many of you reading this right now are individuals whom I have had the pleasure of getting to personally know and work with during my time here at the Journal. When I started here, I didn’t know a soul in this neck of the Bluegrass woods. Since that time, I have met many people that I feel blessed to have met, and others that I will be adding to that list.

For that, and many other things this week, I am thankful.

Nick Hon is the editor of The Jessamine Journal and Jessamine Life magazine and Jessamine Journal. He can be reached at nick.hon@jessaminejournal.com.