It\u2019s Thanksgiving Day, a holiday for families and loved ones around America to come together, be thankful, and share a very large meal. My early Thanksgiving memories always involved driving down to Pittsburgh (well, southern suburbs anyway), visiting both my mom\u2019s side and dad\u2019s side as well as various relations. Turkey, fixings, and pierogis at every stop. It was day to catch up with family.<\/p>\n
As a kid, I didn\u2019t fully appreciate how lucky I was to be surrounded by family and warmth every where I went. Now that the days of my grandmas and their hosting have long passed, I both miss them and am thankful that I got to experience those times. This year, I am grateful for many things but especially these four:<\/p>\n
1. Hard working Pittsburgh roots: My grandfathers spent some time working in the steel mills as well as mechanic shops. My grandmas worked in factories during WWII. My dad even spent a year or two at a foundry\/steel mill. I may not have lived in Pittsburgh, but I feel that the grit of the city is in my blood. \u201cWork hard and you\u2019ll succeed\u201d has been ingrained in me, and what success I\u2019ve found has always required effort whether literal elbow grease or the mental variety.<\/p>\n
2. Modern cancer treatments: Unfortunately, cancer also runs in my family. I lost an aunt in the mid 90s. Fortunately, by the time my mom and her other sisters was diagnosed a decade later, treatments improved. My mom has since survived 3 cancers, and is now fighting her 4th. A routine screening that they took an expanded scan found two different masses detected extremely early just weeks ago. As technology improved, so too have the odds of detecting and beating cancer. It\u2019s why I\u2019m still sharing TG with my mom today and hopeful I will again next year. Which leads to my 3rd thing\u2026<\/p>\n
3. Family: From my parents and brother to my wife and daughter to my uncles, cousins and their children and their children\u2019s children, I am grateful to have so many loved ones in my life. It\u2019s not my only family\u2026<\/p>\n
4. The BTSC community: I have been an on and off again member for many years, but in the last few years, particularly since COVID, I have my found family of Steelers fans. The website may change, writer and editors come and go, but the community is still the best on the web. We may not agree on everything, but this is the only place for \u201cthoughtful discussion with a sense of history.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so, I wish all of you at BTSC a Happy Thanksgiving!<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s NFL games to enjoy with Turkey and a side of gravy:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Thanksgiving Day, a holiday for families and loved ones around America to come together, be thankful, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,710,6,520,57,81740,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-558987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-game-day-threads","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers-discussion","14":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","15":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115622876552854625","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}