This is one of the greatest holidays a family can have. No pressure to buy presents, wrap presents (or buy nice gift boxes and then recycle them every year, which is highly recommended) or decorate anything but a table.
Today, people get together and eat too much. Later that will lead to New Year's resolutions, but for this day it is all about family, food and, of course, football.
Balancing two families can be tricky, but it can be done, especially when the Hall side decides desserts only Thursday night at Tammy and Loren Hatfield's house. Their home is the only one Mom can get in anymore since her broken hip, and we won't know until this afternoon if she feels like going anywhere.
Anyway, this also is the day we give thanks for all that is good in our lives. The day we put everything else on the back burner.
On this day yours truly has much to be thankful for and just a few of those things are:
• For the first time in my almost 40 years as a sports columnist for the statewide newspaper I'm thankful for the end of the University of Arkansas Razorbacks football season. This has been hard on everyone starting with the fans, the coaches, the players, the administration and even the media.
How many ways can a person write a team is not very good, in some turmoil and has been headed this way for years? So while there's always the chance that payback will happen tomorrow -- this free fall started two years ago when the Razorbacks blew a lead and lost to Missouri when the Tigers were down -- that's a long shot, but for sure no one can make them play any more games on the field this year after tomorrow.
• I'm always thankful for my family. My sisters are amazing with my mom. Daughter Whitney is happy and has a great job. Mom, well, she's not mom so much, but we have a million memories to cherish.
• My wife Monica and her family are good people with good values and good hearts. About 20 of us are gathering in Hot Springs Village for a feast that only Lorene Watson could prepare with as little help as possible, and you don't try to help without offering first.
• I'm thankful for my career which has taken me to 37 states and seven countries. The management team of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has always been amazing. If you missed it last Sunday, your newspaper is the third largest in the South behind only the papers in Houston and Dallas and we are almost half the cost.
• We all should be thankful for the great staff at the Democrat-Gazette, and I'm especially thankful for the folks in the sports department who put out one of the best sports sections in the country. We hear that all the time from people who travel outside the state.
• It is early, but I'm probably going to be thankful that Mike Anderson's basketball team is going to take people's minds off the football team. The one thing that seems obvious is the chemistry seems to be better and everyone gets it. Daniel Gafford is the go-to guy.
• Thankful for the new excitement surrounding Darrell Walker and the UALR basketball program.
• I'm thankful for my preacher, Chuck "The Pigskin Preacher" Monan and our new church, Pinnacle Church of Christ, that started in May and has outgrown two venues already. Great group of people.
• I'm thank for my friends, and I have more than my share. Too many to mention them all here, but special thanks to Ed Daniel for the smoked turkey.
I could go on and on because I'm truly blessed, but I am out of room. Happy Thanksgiving.
Sports on 11/22/2018