My Thanks on Thanksgiving

To God for my incredible wife, the partner in my life, and our two wonderful sons To the Pilgrims and Puritans, Squanto, the Wampanoags and the American turkey To the settlers, mountain men, 49ers, grubstakers, land grantees, cowboys, and wildcatters who conquered the American wilderness To the citizen soldiers, the Minute Men, Militia, Continental Army, National Guard, Reserves and Active Duty who won our freedom and then fought to maintain it To the American people who finally realize the falsity of President Obama, which even the media can no longer gloss over To President Reagan who revived America from the Carter Malaise To President George W. Bush who brought security to the United States after 9/11 To our Founding Fathers who gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights To Fr. Stephen A Privett, S.J. and Mary Sue Coleman, who are retiring after long successful runs as Presidents of the University of San Francisco and Michigan respectively To Ohio Northern University, which started my academic career, Dean Howard I. Kalodner and Western New England College which saved my career, and President James A. Doti for letting me part of the incredible academic growth of Chapman University To the thousands of students over 41 ½ years who have made teaching a labor of love rather than just a job To Rupert Murdock, Roger Ailes and Fox News for an alternative presentation of the news To the builders of America: John Jacob Astor The Cabots and Lowells Thomas A. Edison, George Westinghouse and Alexander Graham Bell J. P. Morgan, Amedeo Pietro Giannini, Walter Wriston, Charles Merrill,Vharles Schwarb Henry J. Kaiser, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, Henry Clay Frick, Henry George Steinbrenner, II. Commodore Vanderbilt, James J. Hill, Theodore Judah, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Colis P. Huntington and Leland Stanford. John D. Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, H.L. Hunt, Joseph N. Pew, John Paul Getty, Leon Hess and Howard Hughes The Wright Brothers, William Boeing, Allen & Malcolm Loughead, John Northrup, Igor Sikorsky, Kelly Johnson and Simon Ramo Friedrich Weyerhauser George Huntington Hartford, R. H. Macy, Frank W. Woolworth and Sam Walton Madam C. W. Walker and Robert L. Johnson. Frederick Terman, William Hewlett, David Packard and Arnold C. Beckman. Robert Gordon Sproul and Clark Kerr Thomas Watson and Steve Jobs. Charles F. Dolan and John Malone Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., Henry Ford, Walter Chrysler, Charles Kettering, Frank Seiberling, Harvey Firestone, Cyrus McCormick, Sr., John Deere R. H. Macy, F. W. Woolworth, Sam Walton Phil Knight Robert Moses, William Mulholland, Griffith Griffith, John McLaren and Michael O’Shaughnessy. Conrad Hilton, J. Willard Marriott, the Pritzkers, and Kemmon Wilson James I. Irvine, George Argyros, William Levitt, Del E. Webb, Edward J. De Bartolo, Sr., Captain Richard King Herbert Henry Dow, Eleuthere Irenee du Pont, and Samuel Curtis Johnson, Sr. Meyer Guggenheim George Halas, Walt Disney Ray Kroc, Dave Thomas, Carl Karcher, Sr. To Martin Luther King, Jr., A. Philip Randolph, Cesar Chavez & Delores Huerta