IT’S TODAY: The hills of Pennsylvania. Hunting season. Clean,
crisp water and air. Night skies full of stars. Leeks in the
spring; ground pine in November.
Although we rack out brains every year, we come back to the main
things we’re thankful for on this special day.
No traffic jams. No smog. No congestion, or noise, or commotion
— except maybe during the Italian Festival and then it’s a good
thing.
We don’t have a lot of people but the ones we do have are
upretentious, polite, and very friendly. Hardly anybody walks by
you on Main Street without at least a smile or nod. Sometimes they
even stop their cars to let you cross the street — against the
light. You might not realize this is a big deal until you go to a
city and see people turn away at your innocent and friendly
glance.
The kind of people who call this region home also line the
highways and roads of McKean and Elk counties and hold up signs and
American flags welcoming home Charlie Co., our soldiers who spent a
good part of the year in Iraq.
Our region still does not have to worry about subdivisions,
cul-de-sacs, strip malls, and urban sprawl. In fact, we’d like a
little sprawl.
We like the idea we can look out our windows in Bradford and see
a family of bears recycling our garbage. Sure, they should be in
the woods and they can become a nuisance. But, still, it’s cool
that they like Bradford, too.
At The Era, we’re grateful for a news staff that mixes
experience with youthful enthusiasm. A special thanks to the crews
working today, Thanksgiving, to make sure you have a newspaper
tomorrow.
Putting out a newspaper, especially in these trying times,
requires an unbelievable effort from a variety of people —
circulation, advertising, classified, press crew, drivers,
carriers. Your efforts do not go unnoticed particularly since, in
more than 130 years, we’ve never missed an edition.
Our thanks, too, to the people who have stuck with us. Our
advertisers, our loyal readers, our news sources.
A special thanks to our RTS readers. Without you, of course,
this column would not exist.
