This is Thanksgiving Week. Expressing gratitude is too important to limit to only one day. Especially when half the day may be devoted to watching football games. (Or perhaps for the younger folks, playing touch football in the front yard.)

I was reminded as I listened to one of my favorite ministers this morning that we need to express our gratitude. And to be grateful even when it may be hard to find something to be thankful for.  As my friend, Willie Jolley says, “Every setback is a chance to recalibrate, refocus, and rise stronger.”

President-elect Trump has completed the nomination process for most high-level positions. I was hoping one of my friends would be nominated for Secretary of Agriculture. But Brooke Rollins seems to have a solid background in agriculture and may have the stature to work with other Secretaries and Congress in support of farmers and ranchers. Helping Congress maneuver the competition of a 5-year Farm Bill will be her first job. The bill is two years overdue.

You have heard that Trump wants to eliminate the Department of Education. This department has been on its own since 1979. Prior to that it was part of the Health, Education and Welfare Department, formed in 1953. Unfortunately, the rankings of our students compared to other countries have declined during those years.

I come from a long line of public-school teachers. It is not the teachers’ fault that only 80% of adults can read today, compared to 90% in 1950. And math scores for students rank behind 25 other countries. The various new-fangled ways of doing simple arithmetic problems are so complicated that well-educated parents and grandparents can’t help their 9-year-old with homework. What about the other one of the 3 R’s? Writing skills are lacking, too. It’s no surprise that only 40% of employers consider their new employees, including college graduates, proficient in writing.

So, eliminate the Department of Education. Encourage the 4400 federal employees there to return to their hometown and take a teaching position. They just might learn something from other teachers, and even their students.

I’m grateful for all readers of my Weekly Comments. Let’s hope our schools can focus on teaching students the basics of “readin’, ritin’, and rithmetic” so more youngsters can comprehend, decipher, and debate the written word.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“It’s not a bad old Thanksgiving at that… Let’s see what we got to be thankful for. Congress adjourning, I know will be the first thing that comes into your mind. But that blessing will be short-lived, for they are soon to meet again. Wall Street stocks are about back up to where the suckers can start buying again. The farmers can be thankful. Didn’t the Farm Board decide in Washington last week that they could have cheaper interest? All the farmers have to do now is to find something new to put up as security.” DT #1042, Nov. 27, 1929

“Thanksgiving Day. In the days of its founders, they were willing to give thanks for mighty little, for mighty little was all they expected. But now neither government or nature can give enough but what we think it’s too little. Those old boys in the Fall of the year, if they could gather in a few pumpkins, potatoes and some corn for the winter, they was in a thanking mood. But if we can’t gather in a new Buick, a new radio, a tuxedo and some government relief, why we feel like the world is agin us.” DT #2594, Nov. 28, 1934

“The reason there wasn’t much unemployment in the last ten years pre- ceding ’29 [the Roaring Twenties] was every man that was out of a job went to work for the government—state or city. It costs ten times more to govern us than it used to, and we are not governed one-tenth as good.” DT #1770, March 27, 1932