By the time it gets to my place at the Thanksgiving table, all the important things have been taken: thanks for health, family, work, pure good luck.
Here's a little of what's left.
Honorable mention, thanks for: readers who use their real names; Kentucky Derby future pools; great novels by Evan Hunter and Donald E. Westlake; slot machine players; the 15-yard pass interference penalty in college football; $5,000 claimers; home wagering outlets; traditional college football uniforms; talk of an eight-team college playoff, as four teams are a joke, with the Big 12 about to be robbed, for openers; IRS auditors who understand horse racing; occasional good grammar; occasional good writing; and hip replacement surgery for dogs that puts their life expectancy back on track.
Particular thanks to the following:
Lousy handicappers, who add "value" to the winners.
Cheaters aren't move prevalent. The game hasn't gotten any harder to figure. Pickers have just gotten worse. A 20 percent return in the stock market is considered terrific. A 200 percent return on a horse race investment is thought to be barely worth the effort.
Chief among the bad pickers are the "value" hunters. The quote marks around "value" highlight sarcasm because according to my notes, "value" hunters win close to zero percent of the time. Looking for "value" is like participating in a "betting race." It's another way of saying you have no idea who is going to win. Throwing out a picker's "value" selection is a gimmie. So what are you supposed to do if you like three of them about the same? Play them all or pass on the race. Looking for "value" is guessing. Guessing is great fun. Say it, say you're lost and are taking a flier and perhaps the jinx will be lifted.
Hard-headed picks, making the same mistakes time after time, like playing deep closers in the Belmont Stakes, are deeply appreciated by handicappers who will believe anything.
Other bad picks are trendy selections, based on cat-eating-the-mouse grins that try to hide inside info. Trendy picks seem slightly devious and must overtake karma in the home stretch. Hard-headed picks, making the same mistakes time after time, like playing deep closers in the Belmont Stakes, are deeply appreciated by handicappers who will believe anything.
Given home wagering outlets, there's no excuse for playing unknown horses at strange tracks. It's not like the way they make you walk a mile to get at the action in a casino, when the effort is such that you feel like you have to stay and bet more. You can grind it out on a computer screen. A track in Timbuktu can become your "home" track.
Next, thanks for the work of Charley Harper.
He's dead, what great artist isn't.
Charley Harper did the best bird and wildlife art imaginable. His is not the stuff of postage stamps and geeky technical drawings. He did the most creative and humorous bug and bird and critter material ever. He was so good, he created a genre. His work makes some of the best calendars and note cards, wallpaper splotches, even.
Next, thanks for "Doc Martin," a TV show currently in reruns on PBS of all places.
This one is set in a British coastal town with natural colors bright as a Disney cartoon. The good Doc is a fabulous surgeon who is afraid of blood and has moved to the scenic sticks where there are fewer people to see him throw up after taking a routine blood sample.
"Doc Martin" should be seen from show one, season one, so you can understand why he's such a mess.
The Brits have it all over the Americans when it comes to using actors who look like real people, not starlets.
Next, thanks for newspapers.
You remember newspapers.
Newspapers are one of a few remaining good habits. Paper pages have texture and carry with them a relaxed form of reading. Without paper pages of a morning, work starts earlier.
And thanks for karma.
Karma is part spiritual, with legal and political undercurrents.
The cheaters, the abusers, those rude and unmannerly, and the constantly complaining, karma is magical, it'll eventually get them, you'll still be going strong and they won't.