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Watch it in a movie and you would think it corny. Have it happen to you and you know what to be thankful for.

I worked the holiday yesterday, scrambling around as the lone reporter.

First assignment, cover a dinner for veterans prepared by veterans. John Miklosi laughs about being wounded twice in WWII and finds great joy in getting out of the VA Medical Center for a few hours to relish a home-cooked feast.

Second assignment, volunteers from 170 miles away cook 21 turkeys and all the fixings, then bring them to West Pittston as a free community dinner for residents who were pushed out of their homes by record floods in September. Carolyn White, forced to live with her grown handicapped son and Great Dane in a single room of a friend's house while her's is restored, makes time to help other displaced residents take advantage of the Marine Toys for Tots campaign.

Third story, spot news coverage of a fire that displaces two families, including a woman who lost her father nine days earlier. I loan her my cell phone, I watch her gripping a photo she saved, I see the tears well.

Night reporter Jerry Lynott graciously comes to relieve me on scene so I can finish my shift. I go back to my car and find the lot I parked in blocked by a long fire hose laid after the initial hydrant pressure ran low.  I get my wife to pick me up and take me home, where we will be hosting seven others for Thanksgiving supper in 40 minutes. I hastily slice sweet potatoes for French fry treatment, give a 10 second course on how to do it, and go to the office to write the second story and start the fire story for Jerry with my notes.

Dinner is to start at 5:30, I leave the office at 5:40, arriving home to find guests chatting and smoke filling the kitchen. Unfamiliar with deep frying, my wife overheated the oil, then burnt the first batch of fries black. We vent the room and start over while everyone sits to have the opening course of pumpkin soup I made the night before.

And I am thankful to have health, family and home.

 

About this Blog

My column is neither beat or subject specific, and has ranged from whimsical to hard news. Since I'm primarily an education reporter and a native of the Hazleton area, those often draw my focus.

About the Author

A West Hazleton native, I worked as a service technician repairing electronic mailing and shipping systems, a bike shop owner and an Emergency Medical Technician (among other jobs) before landing a reporter job at the Times Leader Hazleton Bureau in 1995. I started by covering primarily politics in Hazleton City and outlying municipalities, eventually became "social issues" team leader in the Wilkes-Barre office with the accent on education, and headed the Hazleton Bureau for a spell before returning to full-time reporting, my preferred position. I'm an avid cyclist and rode across the country in 1990, a trip of more than 5,000 miles from New Jersey to Seattle and down the coast to San Francisco. Years in the Boy Scouts made me a life long backpacker and camper, and I've yet to find a better way to enjoy the quiet lure of winter snow than cross country skiing.

Mark also writes a regular blog for timesleader.com.

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