Wake up early. Still dark outside. It is 30-odd degrees on Lake Martin and I can’t feel my unmentionables.

The 1940s cabin is poorly insulated. You could store Ben & Jerry’s products in the living room.

I make coffee. Sit on the couch, wedging myself between sleeping dogs. I warm my frozen hands by touching the tender canine flesh of their warm underbellies. The dogs all give me disgusted looks when they feel my icy hands groping them.

My sister wakes up. She tiptoes into the living room. Hair askew. Wearing PJs. We sit together, drinking coffee. And just for a moment I’m 14 years old again, as we talk of olden times.

My wife awakes. The dogs all spring off the couch when they hear my wife’s footsteps in the hall, performing deep yoga stretches to celebrate her arrival. They do not do this for me.

Next, the rest of my sister’s crew is awake. Little girls in pajamas are rushing in and out of the kitchen, singing and playing, crying and tattling,

laughing and shouting. Dogs are chasing them. And I’m wondering if it’s too early to start drinking.

My wife looks at me and laughs. She says, “Mazel tov!” for some reason. Even though we are not Jewish.

The cooking marathon commences. My wife and my sister have been preparing food for days. My wife operates her kitchen like the captain of a German U-boat. Her cool glare toward all males who enter her ship’s cockpit is frightening.

So, I become invisible.

I don a canvas jacket, and wander outside. I am preparing the cabin’s exterior for the upcoming onslaught at noon. I rake the yard, leaf-blow the driveway, and chase one runaway bloodhound across nearly a mile of gravel roads.

Next, I build a fire in the firepit. I am the male of my family. I am the bringer of fire. I continually walk around the…

We were walking the Camino de Santiago. Trudging toward some farflung village in the remote unseen.

There was a big group of us walking together. Jamie and I were the eldest of the group. Most of these pilgrims were in their teens or mid-20s. They were kids, far from home. And strays of all species have a tendency to follow my wife.

Such as the Japanese kid who had been in Spain alone. He’d met no other Japanese there in three weeks. He was isolated by language since his entire English vocabulary consisted of “yes,” “thank you,” and “Roll Tide.” I taught him the last one.

Our group marched forward. Feet scraping on the trail. Every language was spoken. But we found commonality in English.

We were talking about holidays, comparing our cultures. An American asked whether any other countries celebrated Thanksgiving.

“In Canada,” answered one young woman, “we have Action de grâce, which is like your American Thanksgiving. We have a feast with ham, turkey, mashed potatoes. The biggest difference is, we maple glaze

everything, including annoying relatives.”

“In Ireland, we have Lughnasa. It’s not like Thanksgiving at all. It’s an ancient Celtic harvest festival. We have food and drink and sport. Usually, there’s a long, post-meal walk up a giant hill. Then, according to tradition, everyone goes home and makes babies.”

“In Mexico we have many traditions for giving thanks. Our Lady of Guadelupe is one of our biggest holidays, many pilgrims leave their villages on foot, they walk for days to visit the basilica in Mexico City. Many of them walk barefoot until feet are bloody.”

“In South Korea, we celebrate ‘Chuseok.’ Celebration lasts for three day. All about gratitude. Very fun. Honor ancestors. Visit graves. Give many gifts. SPAM is very popular gift.”

“SPAM?” replied someone. “Seriously?”

“Many Asian cultures love SPAM.”

The Japanese kid smiled. Finally a word he understood. “SPAM! YES! SPAM! SO GOOD!”

The old woman felt weird, not cooking this year.

But she’d given up cooking Thanksgiving ever since the stroke paralyzed half of her body and forced her into an assisted living home.

Still, it was bizarre. Sitting on the sidelines, after all these years. Watching capable women bustle about the kitchen.

She watched her daughters and daughters-in-law lift large casserole pans, wash tall stacks of dishes, cracking open various bottles, jars, and plasticized containers of all shapes and denominations.

The old woman had prepared 54 Thanksgivings, solo. Fifty-four. And she’d been cooking Thanksgiving supper with her mother since before Franklin D. Roosevelt was a household name.

But now, she was doomed to sit in the bleachers. She rarely left the assisted living home—except for holidays like today.

As she watched her daughters move throughout the kitchen, she felt a strange mix of pride and sorrow. Pride, because her daughters were confident, adept mothers and homemakers. Sorrow, because life goes by so dang fast.

Her daughters removed the thawed turkey from its plastic wrapper. They placed the raw carcass onto a

large cutting board. One daughter removed a big cleaver and began cutting the turkey in half while the other held the bird with both hands.

The old woman watched while one painstakingly began to lob the turkey in half, cutting through bone and tendon.

The old mother couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“Stop,” she said.

The young women quit cutting. They just looked at their mom.

“Why are you cutting that turkey in half?” the old woman asked.

“What do you mean?” said the oldest daughter. “This is how we’ve been cooking turkey for years, Mama.”

The old woman smiled. “Why would you do such a thing? Cutting it in half?”

The daughters exchanged a look. “Becuase that’s how YOU always cooked turkey, Mama. You’d cut it in half.”

The youngest daughter explained. “Mama, every year, when we were…

The Little League team was good. Really good. The nine mop-haired, lanky boys, clad in classic ‘70s harvest-gold uniforms, were undefeated this season. They had a shot at the pennant.

But then, devastation.

Their first baseman was sliding into home when he broke his shin in two places. Doctors operated. Wired his bones back together. The boys all signed his cast. Unless they could find a replacement, it was goodnight Irene.

The coach held tryouts. The whole team gathered. Every boy was anxious to find a new player who kick some proverbial posterior.

Two boys auditioned that afternoon.

The first was tall and strong. Square-jawed. Looked like he’d been shaving since age three. He was a natural athlete, wiry and agile, an RBI machine. Just wind him up and let him go.

The audition should have been over right then and there. But it wasn’t.

The second boy got his shot, too.

His name was Arnold. He was small, awkwardly built, and he walked funny. Arnold suffered from polio as a baby. He lifted the pantlegs of

his blue jeans to reveal metal braces.

“Braces?” the coach remarked. “You can’t run with those, son.”

“I can, sir,” the boy replied

So, the coach put him through drills. True to his word, the kid could run with the braces. He was slow. His gait looked more like skipping than running, almost like a strange dance. But he was doing it.

Next, the coach put Arnold in the infield.

Arnold missed half the balls hit to him, but he dove in the dirt, without care of injury, leapt as high as he could, and sprinted until he fell over and got mouthfuls of dust. Arnold showed more hustle than 50 boys his age.

Then, it was time for hitting. The tiny boy stood at the plate. Bat held at his ear. Out of breath from exertion. His little shirt was drenched.

That’s…

The following story is true, sent in via email by a man named Gale.

The mid-80s. Detroit. The boy didn’t have much. He was one of those teens most people won’t notice.

Each day, he walked to and from school with a ratty backpack on his shoulders, containing a pitiful lunch he made himself, since he had no mother to prepare meals.

He had no father, either. The boy was raised by his aunt, who spent her life in the arms of some guy she met at a bar, or lost at the bottom of a bottle.

His aunt’s life was such a mess she couldn’t even remember to do the grocery shopping regularly. So the boy got pretty good at buying groceries.

Truth told, he actually liked grocery shopping. The supermarket was his jam. He loved the clean, crisp aisles, with food piled high on shelves. He loved the water-sprinklers, misting vegetables in the produce department. He loved the elevator music.

Today, he was exiting the store with an armful of groceries when he was met

by an older man, standing outside the supermarket, asking for handouts.

The young man’s heart was pricked when he saw the man. He offered the man his sack of groceries.

The grocery bag was full of peanut butter, jelly, frozen French fries, a gallon of two-percent, Frosted Flakes, and other odds and ends. This was supposed to last the boy for an entire week.

The man smiled his tooth at the kid. There was something wet in his eyes. “God bless you, son.”

The kid flashed a return smile, one with a little pain behind it. That was HIS food. He walked home empty handed.

The following week was pretty tough. It’s hard to function when you’re hungry. Hard to fall asleep, too. Digestive acids start to hurt your stomach. Mostly, you just lie in bed, thinking about sandwiches.

The boy ate free…

The old woman was an expert knitter. Everyone in the little town loved her knitting. People came from far and wide to admire the beautiful work she created.

One day, a little girl visited the old woman’s house and asked for knitting lessons. The old woman was thrilled, of course. But the little girl was exponentially more excited—the child looked like she was going to detonate right there on the woman’s doorstep.

“PLEASE TEACH ME TO KNIT!” said the child in all caps.

“Of course,” the woman replied. “I will teach you to knit next week.”

“BUT CAN’T YOU TEACH ME TODAY?” the girl said, once again with the caps lock engaged.

“I’m very busy today, child. Visit next week, and we will begin.”

That week went by sooooo S-L-O-W. By the time the girl arrived at the old woman’s house for her first lesson she was quivering with excitement, she could hardly remain still.

The woman welcomed her inside, then handed the little girl a newspaper.

“What’s this?” asked the little girl.

“I want you to read the paper aloud while I knit.”

“Read?”

said the girl. “But what about my lesson?”

“Soon you will learn,” said the old woman.

So the girl read the newspaper as the old woman knit a beautiful sweater such as had never been seen. The girl kept stealing glances at the woman’s magnificent handiwork, watching and observing.

For the next week’s lesson, the girl arrived on the old woman’s doorstep, bouncing with unrelenting enthusiasm. She even brought her own knitting needles this time.

“I’M READY FOR MY LESSON!” The girl was almost leaping as she spoke.

The old woman smiled. Then she handed the girl a mop.

“What’s this?” said the girl. “What about my lesson?”

“Soon you will learn,” said the old woman.

The girl spent the entire day mopping the floors. Meantime, the woman knitted the most intricately patterned piece of…

The 8-year-old boy offered to help the old man in his garden. The old widower wore a chewed up Red Man hat, and jeans with mud stains on the knees.

The boy asked the random, nonsensical questions of boyhood:

If the world is spinning, why can’t we feel it, Grandpa? Why does time feel slow when I’m bored, but fast when I’m having fun?

The old man answered every persistent question with patience. Then, the conversation took a turn toward the philosophical. It is a well-known fact that 8-year-olds are philosophers.

“What’s humble mean?” the boy asked.

“Humble?” the old man replied. “Why do you ask?”

The boy shrugged. “There is a picture in your bathroom that says ‘Be it ever so humble.’”

“Oh, that.”

“It hangs over the toilet.”

“I know.”

“I can see the picture really good whenever I’m peeing.”

Grandpa laughed. “Yes. Your grandmother embroidered those words before she died.”

The boy began digging with a small handshovel. The kid’s hands were soon covered with soil. His fingernails, black.

“Humble,” the old man said, lost in thought. “Sorta hard to explain...”

The boy waited.

“Well, just

look at the trees, the trees are humble.”

The boy wrinkled his face. “The trees?”

“A tree is not loud. Not boastful. Not showy, or self-important. He’s not trying to be something he’s not. A tree never judges anyone.”

The kid was silent.

“Same way with birds,” the man added. “Birds aren’t interested in being right. They don’t share our human need to win.”

The child continued to dig. His little hole was growing too deep to serve any true gardening purposes.

“And yet,” the man said, “birds have every reason to be proud. Birds can fly, they can even navigate using Earth’s magnetic fields.”

“What’s magnetic fields?”

“Something a bird uses to travel thousands of miles by memory. Did you know that some birds can fly 180 miles per hour?…

The Central California coast was covered in dense fog that clung to the world like a wet T-shirt. Morro Bay was gray and cold.

The bay lies directly between Los Angeles and San Francisco. You’re looking at about 2,300 acres of Pacific tidal flats, marshes, and beaches, one of the few national estuaries in the US.

It was midday when the Marine Mammal Center’s phone rang. A concerned caller was reporting weird sounds coming from Morro Bay. Crying sounds. Almost like a baby crying. A high-pitched squealing noise.

The center manages about 600 miles of coastline, including Morro Bay. The workers knew what the sound likely was.

The bay is home to about 70 sea otter adults. Which might not sound like many otters, because it isn’t. But it’s a huge population, considering.

Considering, primarily, that sea otters were nearly wiped out by hunters from the 1700s to the 1900s. Otter pelts were worth a pretty penny. Americans loved wearing the pelts for high-end hats and cloaks.

After only a short

time in history, the global population of sea otters went from around 500,000 to somewhere above 1,000. By the 20th century otters were little more than a historical afterthought.

One of the great victories of our modern age, aside from sliced bread and heated toilet seats, is the restoration of the global sea otter population. Today, there are roughly 150,000 sea otters.

The Mammal Center sent a four-person team into the bay along with the harbor patrol. The boat trolled through the water, but found nothing at first. Then rescuers heard the faint crying. Infant-like cries.

Shyla Zink works at the Center in Morro Bay. She said this was serious. Baby otters need their moms.

“That pup is really relying on everything it learns from the mother to be able to survive in the ocean,” said Shyla.

The team spent hours on the water until they found the a…

A few of this week’s questions from the audience.

Q: Sean, I can’t figure out whether you’re a Republican or Democrat… Could you please share your views on the ICE arrests in this country so I know where you stand?

A: I’ll bet you’re all hands on a first date, too.

Q: You’re a [cuss-word] and a cowardly [maternal cuss-word]… for criticizing our Border Patrol agents in Charlotte, North Caroline.

A: I think you mean “Carolina.” Also, I didn’t criticize. I think your message was intended for Charlotte’s mayor, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, the multiple city officials, the Charlotte City Council members, the Mecklenburg County officials, the several North Carolina senators, the congressional representatives, and the Republican state lawmakers who DID criticize the agents’ job performance.

Q: …You’re a lib-tard, I just know it. I can tell by the way you write.

A: I can tell a lot by the way you write, as well.

Q: I’m shocked you chose sides in a political issue, I am deeply shocked. I never expected you to demonize

one party.

A: Sorry, I never choose sides. No single party can fool all the people all the time, that’s why we have two parties.

Q: In your last article, you shared a photo of your “gratitude chalkboard” for Thanksgiving. And one of the items you were thankful for was listed as: THE BLACKS. I truly did not expect racism from you, please explain this. I am deeply disturbed.

A: Sure thing. Joel Black, Tammie Black, Graham Black—along with Sierra, Violet, and Violet’s big sister Hazel. If you find racism issues in my friends’ last names I suggest you take it up with them. Also, I agree, you might be deeply disturbed.

Q: In your last article, you cited different historical dates and used the abbreviation “BCE” instead of BC. BCE is a secular abbreviation that removes Christ from history.

A:…

“Do unto others...” your mother always said. Usually that was what your mom told you whenever you were acting like a little flatulent-head.

Her words were usually uttered with that unique tone that only mom’s can achieve. Your mother uses the same tone when saying:

“Just wait until your father gets home…” “You’d better count your blessings, young man...” “There are people starving in China; eat your liver…”

Do unto others.

The Golden Rule is older than you might think. The first reference to The Rule comes from ancient Egypt, roughly 2000 BCE. “Do for one who may do for you, that you may cause him thus to do.”

It’s also in ancient Sanskrit, in a 3,000-year-old book called Mahābhārata: “Do not to others what you do not wish done to yourself…”

Similar words also come from Rabbi Hilel, 1st century BCE, long before the birth of Western Christianity. “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; this is the whole Torah; the rest is explanation.”

And in the Tamil traditions of Southern

India, 1st century BCE: “Do not do to others what you know has hurt yourself.”

The ancient African proverb: “If you cannot add to the man you meet, do not subtract from him.”

And in archaic Mayan civilizations, on the other side of the world, the ancients said: “In Lak’ech Ala K’in.” Which means, “I am another you, and you are another me.”

In ancient Greece, all the smart guys were using the Rule:

“Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.” Thales of Miletus (624 –546 BCE)

Sextus the Pythagorean, 3rd century. “What you do not want to happen to you, do not do it yourself either.”

The venerable Plato (420-347 BCE): “I am sensible I shall treat others with the same respect [with which I treat myself].”

In ancient Persia, (300 BCE): “Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto…