Our View: Giving thanks

Thanksgiving Day is one of the great American holidays because it is the time when everyone of different backgrounds, political persuasions and faiths can focus on being thankful for what we have. Because what we have is a truly stunning amount.

Thanksgiving directs us to look beyond ourselves, at the blessings in our life — regardless of where you may believe they come from — and to express thanks for them. That means being thankful to our Creator and to those who have touched us and enriched us along the way.

We live in a community where it only takes a pair of eyes to see a plethora of things for which to be thankful.

So this year, as we have done on occasion over the years, we are sharing a list of some of the blessings for which we are thankful here on Longboat Key.

Indeed, we are humbly and graciously thankful, in no particular order, for:

The amazing view of Longboat Key from an airplane
The birds on the beach
The heron that sits on the roofs of cars at Publix
The beach
The emerald color of the water in the New Pass and Longboat Pass lagoons
Longboat sunsets
Full moons over the bay and gulf
The breathtaking drives over the New Pass and Longboat Pass bridges onto Longboat Key. Welcome to Paradise!
Longboat Key Club and Resort event staff (always top-flight and courteous)
The packs of bicyclists racing up and down Gulf of Mexico Drive
Kiwanis Club members and all they do — luncheons, bell ringing, pancake breakfasts, food drives, scholarships
Longboat Key Garden Club and all its members do — home tours, scholarships, beautification awards, fashion shows
The new Christ Church Campus
Freedom Fest — the shortest, cutest Fourth of July parade in America
The butterfly release
at Freedom Fest
How Longboaters are not retired; they’re as active and engaged as ever in making the Key, Sarasota/Manatee and the world a better place
The inspiration we get from Longboat’s incredibly accomplished (and low-profile, humble) residents
The weather — spring, summer, fall, winter — it’s all great
The Saturday and Sunday boaters and partiers anchored in the New Pass lagoon
The Longboat Key Public Works staff members, especially when they place those 2,977 American flags along Gulf of Mexico Drive every Sept. 11 in honor of the 9/11 victims.
Longboat and Lido Keys’ restaurants
Tennis on Longboat Key — especially all those who play it!
Publix
Longboat Key Ace Hardware
The Key’s lush, tropical vegetation
October, November, April and May on Longboat Key (weather to die for)
Summers on Longboat Key (no snowbirds!)
Winters on Longboat Key (a lot of snowbirds!)
The Longboat Key Center for the Arts and its director, Jane Buckman
All Angels by the Sea, Christ Church of Longboat Key, Longboat Island Chapel, St. Mary Star of the Sea, Temple Beth Israel, St. Armands Key Lutheran. They are the glue that holds our perspectives in the right place
Longboat Key Club and Resort, the anchor for so much of this Key
Murf Klauber and Jay Yablon, adversaries, yes, but undyingly passionate and determined to bring back the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort
Casa del Mar’s D.M. Williams and his record-breaking cotton plants
How Longboat Police Chief Al Hogle and his team keep the Key safe
The Longboat Key paramedics
“It’s Read Everywhere” photos that so many readers send in
The annual Easter Egg hunt at the Key Club
The annual Light Up the Keys contest that lights up Gulf of Mexico Drive during the holidays
Joan M. Durante Park and its flowers and birds
Quick Point Park
The smell of the bay and gulf
The birds that swarm and nest on the tiny spoil islands on the north end of the Key
The view of Sarasota Bay and downtown Sarasota from Mar-Vista Pub and Moore’s Stone Crab restaurants
The view of downtown Sarasota on SR 789 between St. Armands Circle and Lido Shores
St. Armands Circle
Christmas Light Night and Fright Night on St. Armands Circle
The swans
Resident David Novak for taking care of the swans
Photographer Lou Newman and his stunning photographs of the swans How much Longboaters care (about everything)
Town commissioners for volunteering to take the grief for a thankless job. The view of the Gulf of Mexico horizon, especially from the upper-floor of a beach front condominium
Walks on the beach
Sea shells
Soft, white sand
The awe of powerful crashing waves on a rainy, windy day
Tom Mayers’ passion for preserving Longboat Key’s history and the historical society
The town staff
Everyone who volunteers
Local businesses
Our friends (and family, of course)
The opportunity to publish this newspaper
The privilege and blessing to live here