"If you count all your assets, you always show a profit.''
-- Robert Quillen, South Carolina writer and humorist (1887-1948)Quillen, an author known for pithy bursts of thought, may have been speaking of the Great Depression but his words ring as true today as we ready ourselves to close out a tough economic year and head into the promise that 2011 holds.
This Thanksgiving like none other in recent years, we are reminded that it's time to give thanks for the riches we know and sometimes take for granted in the Tampa Bay region.
While unemployment is at an unacceptable level, particularly if you're without a job or underemployed, let us not forget that more than 87 percent of us are working -- albeit perhaps working harder and sometimes longer hours for less than in recent years, but earning a living nonetheless and able to put food on our plates, clothes on our backs and shelter over our heads.
If you count all of our assets -- new jobs being added, banks lending again, low borrowing rates, an uptick in manufacturing, a bountiful harvest, daily sunshine, no visible oil residue in our part of the Gulf, perfect 83 Degrees temperatures in November, Snowbirds flocking south, a winter calendar filled with fun and productive activities, generally healthy schools and workplaces -- we will indeed always show a profit.
We who have brought you
83 Degrees each week for the past year, are especially grateful to you as loyal readers who help make it all possible. With your encouragement and ongoing sharing of our stories, we will continue to report on what's new with the region's talent, innovations, global diversity and quality of life in an effort to help shape what's next for our community.
Thanks to you and thanks to the
83 Degrees editors, writers, photographers and videographers who are taking the week off to spend time with family and friends. We'll be back November 30 with another online edition.
In the meantime, we hope you'll spend the holiday with people you love, get plenty to eat and help tidy up afterward.
Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!
Diane Egner, an experienced journalist in the Tampa Bay region, is publisher and managing editor of 83 Degrees. Comments? Contact 83 Degrees.
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