Thanksgiving has been a time for tradition and togetherness. Families throughout the country gather to share memories, eat and think about all they have been blessed with over the years.
This year will be different from any other we have experienced in Louisiana. Our state, fresh from the chaos of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, still exists in mangled form as the Legislature and governor attempt to carve out compromises to continue to fund state redevelopment. For many, indeed, this Thanksgiving will take place away from familiar grounds for the first time.
It will be tough for many students who, despite their adulthood, have yet to truly separate themselves from their childhood homes. But we still have much to be thankful for both as individuals and residents of this state and students at this University.
Perhaps we should be grateful first and foremost that we, unlike so many others, still have our lives and health. While we may mourn lost homes and possessions, we must move forward knowing we have so much more despite all the loss and change we have experienced.
Students at this University should be proud of what some of us have done. We have volunteered at the makeshift hospitals in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center and Carl Maddox Fieldhouse, given our money or, later, helped rebuild the devastated parts of our state. We definitely have something we can be proud of in our labor.
So as we gather with our families, or, perhaps our friends, we who have seen and done so much, and have much to be thankful for. We live, despite everything in a free country under the protection of liberty, when so many do not. Almost all of us will be warm, comfortable and have enough to eat – perhaps more than enough. We are, in the end, fortunate people who live, if not in the best of situations, still in relative bliss.
We, at The Daily Reveille, join all of you in hoping for a better future and in the happiness of the holiday.