Happy Thanksgiving From The Sheepshead Bites Team

I love Thanksgiving. It is one of the few American holidays not tied to religion or politics or war, but only to unity among the members of the greatest nation on earth, and for one singular purpose: to express Gratitude.

It is a great shame that people rarely express their gratitude or appreciation for what they have, or whom they owe it to. The author William Arthur Ward once wrote, “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”

Unfortunately, many of us have a vast warehouse of wrapped presents within our hearts.

This past year, my warehouse grew by leaps and bounds. I have been blessed by great friends, wonderful colleagues, a supportive family and a legion of readers who prod me forward – if, sometimes, roughly so – on my exhausting commitment to do good in this world and make a living out of it.

Among those involved in the site to whom I rarely express my gratitude, and are all the more worthy of it in its absence, is Robert Fernandez, who has helped this site and this community in ways that, if I were to quantify them here, would take up far too much space on the page. Alongside him are Sheepshead Bites and Bensonhurst Bean lead bloggers Erica Sherman and Joe Teutonico, respectively. To them I owe tremendous thanks for their amazing efforts. If our business had the resources, these three would earn salaries that would put them among the one percent, and, still, it would not be as much as they deserved.

Thanks also goes to Alanna Fatone, our marketing assistant, and Randy Rojas, our intern, and the dozens of freelancers who tolerate my cuts, scratches, suggestions and reorganizations to pump out content that informs and strengthens this community.

The businesses that have supported us, whether through advertisements on this page, sponsored content or by joining us at events like A Taste of Sheepshead Bay – these are the businesses that we should all be thankful for. They are committed to the community, committed to the existence of an informational forum like Sheepshead Bites, and they have our gratitude. Support them, and show them yours, too.

And, of course, thank you to you, our readers, our neighbors, who on a daily basis frustrate us to wit’s end, but for whom we toil and sweat and bleed, and, despite the frustration, give us encouragement and support and glimmers of hope that our work is not for naught. It is an amazing social experiment to watch you, to listen to you, to write about you and to see the evolution of individual and community through the sole provisions of information and conversation. Every one of you is full of endless surprises, and that, for me at least, is what makes every day so different, every story so fresh, and every moment so enjoyable.

Thank you, for everything, and have a terrific Thanksgiving.