Thanksgiving and NFL video games open thread

It’s Thanksgiving Day, a vacation for households and family members round America to come back collectively, be grateful, and share a really massive meal. My early Thanksgiving recollections at all times concerned driving all the way down to Pittsburgh (nicely, southern suburbs anyway), visiting each my mother’s aspect and pop’s aspect in addition to numerous relations. Turkey, fixings, and pierogis at each cease. It was day to meet up with household.

As a child, I didn’t absolutely respect how fortunate I used to be to be surrounded by household and heat each the place I went. Now that the times of my grandmas and their internet hosting have lengthy handed, I each miss them and am grateful that I received to expertise these occasions. This yr, I’m grateful for a lot of issues however particularly these 4:

1. Hard working Pittsburgh roots: My grandfathers spent a while working within the metal mills in addition to mechanic retailers. My grandmas labored in factories throughout WWII. My dad even spent a yr or two at a foundry/metal mill. I could not have lived in Pittsburgh, however I really feel that the grit of the town is in my blood. “Work hard and you’ll succeed” has been ingrained in me, and what success I’ve discovered has at all times required effort whether or not literal elbow grease or the psychological selection.

2. Modern most cancers therapies: Unfortunately, most cancers additionally runs in my household. I misplaced an aunt within the mid 90s. Fortunately, by the point my mother and her different sisters was identified a decade later, therapies improved. My mother has since survived 3 cancers, and is now combating her 4th. A routine screening that they took an expanded scan discovered two totally different lots detected extraordinarily early simply weeks in the past. As expertise improved, so too have the percentages of detecting and beating most cancers. It’s why I’m nonetheless sharing TG with my mother at this time and hopeful I’ll once more subsequent yr. Which results in my third factor…

3. Family: From my mother and father and brother to my spouse and daughter to my uncles, cousins and their youngsters and their youngsters’s youngsters, I’m grateful to have so many family members in my life. It’s not my solely household…

4. The BTSC group: I’ve been an on and off once more member for a few years, however in the previous couple of years, significantly since COVID, I’ve my discovered household of Steelers followers. The web site could change, author and editors come and go, however the group continues to be the very best on the internet. We could not agree on all the pieces, however that is the one place for “thoughtful discussion with a sense of history.”

And so, I want all of you at BTSC a Happy Thanksgiving!

Today’s NFL video games to get pleasure from with Turkey and a aspect of gravy: