AIR NOVEMBER 25, 1998

Thank you Mark and good morning everyone. It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is upon us. It just seemed like yesterday we were trying to finish harvest... oh, I guess it was just yesterday that some of you were trying to finish harvest - it’s been that kind of a year! For everyone who’s going to be out on the road this holiday season, and that goes on into Christmas and New Years too, be extra careful. Stay alert, don’t drink and drive, obey all speed limits. One of my pet peeves is all those folks who say, well the speed limit is 65 so I can go 69 and not get stopped. Darn it the speed limit is 65, go 65, or if you want, even a couple mph less . Most of our cars have cruise control, just set it and don’t fret. Leave a few minutes earlier and you’ll have plenty of time to make your trip. Don’t play bumper tag. If you pass a spot on the road less than 3 seconds after the car ahead of you did, then you are too close. And the physical forces of nature are such that as your speed increases, the potential damage to you and your vehicle increases much faster. I want all of you back around your radio a week from now, safe and sound.

One of the things that always strikes me at this time of year is how much we take for granted. I’ve heard more than just a few complaints about prices, or the slow harvest and wheat planting and this and that and the other. Yet as I’ve traveled around the last few months, we’ve got it pretty good right here. Go into Oklahoma and Texas where they burned up this spring and early summer and almost drowned in the fall. You crops and your livestock may not have brought what you’d hoped for, but at least you had something to sell. I saw fields in Missouri and even parts of Kansas that would have been great if they ever would have gotten harvested, but they went under water too many times. When you sit down to your Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow or sometime this weekend, with your friends and family, think about all those folks in Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean that withstood those hurricanes. Some of those folks lost all their belongings and most of their friends and family. Take a few minutes to step out of your pity party and look at what you do have. You can be a victim of your circumstances or you can choose to be in control of how you react to what life throws at you. I choose to positive and feel blessed and fortunate for what I have. I hope you all will too!

This is Chuck Otte, County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook '98, wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving!

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