Moreso than Thanksgiving, the coming of a New Year is all about being thankful. It is a different kind of thanks. 

In November, the thanks seem to tend toward what one has been able to attain, what successes have been realized and what blessings have been received.

At the New Year, the thanks take on a broader, more reflective meaning. 

Having the unique opportunity (itself a blessing) to recount stories from the people of Wood County here on page three, it is appropriate to highlight some of the things for which to be thankful in the new year. 

The collected stories over the past short while have left for us – the witnesses of those stories – a number of things to be thankful for.

For lack of better terms, those things are singular and powerful memories, the unburdening of events weighing heavily, the power of emotion  and the unwrapped gifts of turns-of-a-phrase.  

Memories are funny things. When impactful events happen or when notable circumstances combine, they can form lasting impressions. Often, those impactful memories are based on sensorial images: sight, smell, sound and touch.

So it was when Letha Luttrell described eating watermelon on the porch of her grandfather’s house as a young child. 

She explained how her grandfather would walk off into the garden, pick a watermelon, bring it back to the porch and cut it open.

He would cut a ‘V’ into the middle of the piece where the juice would collect. Letha remembers drinking the juice by tipping the watermelon piece high up toward the sky. 

The late Bob Spearman shared, during one of many conversations, how he met his wife. It was at a baseball game. Spearman was playing left field. 

In one of those odd cases of confused base-running that can come to pass in baseball, Spearman became involved in a run-down of an opposing runner caught between third and home. After Spearman’s teammates chased the runner back and forth, Spearman tagged the runner out running from the home plate side of the base path toward third base.  

How he came to be on that end of the run-down, from left field to running from home plate back up the baseline toward third base, was not disclosed.

His future wife was in the stands watching the game, and they were introduced after the game.    

Quitman’s Renee Sessions made these pages for her years of score-keeping at her grandchildren’s Quitman games. She is a feature at Ballard Gymnasium and follows the teams around East Texas. 

What may not be known is that when she travels to out-of-town venues, she often drives herself – following the team bus the whole way.

Once she arrives, her granddaughter, Allie, will climb off the bus and come back to assist her getting from her car into her chair. That is a memory worth holding in one’s heart.  

After a few memories from local storytellers, it became apparent that some of those memories can represent an unburdening of sorts. 

Nothing could have more adequately illustrated that than the recollections of former active-duty Marine Charles Louderman. Listening to the former Marine unpack his memories as he carefully unfolded memorabilia over the kitchen table felt, in a word, sacred.

Perhaps the most emotional words captured on this page were from a young lady named Misty Goldman. She gave a short speech in Mineola at the GoldStars Tribute Wall. The speech was about her brother, Shane Goldman, who was killed in action in Falluja, Iraq.

The emotion and the dignity and the wisdom with which she spoke place her address among the greatest speeches ever recorded.

To wrap up this review, a sampling of quotes is offered. They stand on their own, notable for their clarity, pith and truth. 

The late George Metzel, who founded Chapel in the Woods, was quoted by his son as declaring one day while exploring their undeveloped holding in eastern Wood County, “This is the place we plant the church.” Anyone is welcome to the chapel where George Metzel’s son, Alan, holds services each Sunday at 10:30 a.m.

Dean Heinert, plant manager of Keller’s Creamery in Winnsboro, when describing the mix of old and new technology used to produce butter stated, “Butter is an old business – you find something that works and you stick with it.”

No list would be complete without a sports reference. For this, national horseshoe champion (and Alba resident) Gilley Posten contributed this gem, “There are no strangers in horseshoes.”

Local restaurateur Ricky Perez turned a memorable phrase when he described the difficulty one experiences breaking into an established community. He explained that practicing humility and kindness helps him in “breaking through peoples’ coldness.”

Finally, it was Santa Claus himself (actually Jeff Hurley) who left this remarkable quote, “I am as real as anything that has ever existed…. I am the love of accepting a gift and the love of giving a gift.”

Please keep the stories coming.