Thanksgiving

First off are the friends who came out of the proverbial woodwork to help us out when our house caught fire last month. A Eureka Springs home center donated yards and yards of good used carpeting, which will be going down in the sunroom.

Our kids pitched in right off the bat, providing us with a place to stay, first at one daughter's place on the Kings River, and later at Dream Springs Lodge while they worked at cleaning up and applying Kilz to the walls, and introduced me to the wonders of Mean Green.

A friend from Huntsville installed a kitchen window which had been broken while firefighters fought the blaze. Then there are others, whose names escape me, who contributed with Walmart and Home Depot shopping cards, including friends from the Internet, where my wife is a contributor to PervertedJustice.com, who pitched in to help.

Then there are many others who have offered to supply labor in helping us get reestablished, though it has been difficult for us to see what needs to be done in any predictable manner.

No doubt, I am forgetting someone.

Not being a native of Carroll County -- though my wife is -- I am amazed at the response.

I've learned a lot through the ordeal about how to deal with fire damage, having never gone through a house fire before, but the friendship of people who I never dreamed were so generous has made it a lot easier