Although gratitude should be extended every day of the year, we most remember to feel it on Thanksgiving.

Each year I thank those who have given me their love, friendship, and trust and for everything they do to improve the quality of my life. Here’s my 2022 list filled with old and new names with a few surprises along the way.

Thank you to my children, Richie and Sadie. You make your dad very proud with your academic achievements and despite your busy teenage lives, you find quality time to spend with me. I wish good luck to my son who is applying to top-rated colleges and to have a great senior season on the Jim Thorpe baseball field. Sadie has become quite the creative young woman with both a brush and a pen. Your paintings are fabulous and your essays show how much compassion you have for others.

I extend my apologies to Richie for making him a New York Mets fan that ends in disappointment every year and to Sadie for picking the bad movies we watch together. Better Mets teams and better movies are coming!

Thank you, Sharon for caring so much about me and for filling my heart with your love. As the song says, you are “Perfect,” even when we play rummy and you always seem to get to 500 points long before I do.

To Jersey Mike, my brother from a different mother, thanks for letting me call you my best friend for what now adds up to 58 years. Though we may not see each other as much as before, our hearts and souls are glued together with years of tears from laughing and crying through all of the challenges that life has brought to us. To say it best, here’s your favorite expression which sums it nicely.

“It’s always something!”

On Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Palm Sunday, my kids and I visit our cousins and nieces and nephews in New Jersey. We share our wonderful memories and enjoy every special moment we get to spend with each other as the calendar pages turn to another year.

Thanks to Aunt Dollie, Uncle Steve, and to my cousins Terry and Bobby in Florida for being the loving family I never had while growing up. When you’re a child you just never know who will stay in or will go out of your life when you become an adult. Visiting my Florida family last winter was an extraordinary experience for me and no matter how cold it gets here this season, all I have to do is think about my family in the Sunshine State and my heart warms me right up to a summertime sensation.

To my former teaching colleagues, I thank you for keeping in touch on Facebook. I love it when Sara, Maddie, Pat, and Sandi drop into one of my posts every now and then.

To my family in Texas and to my ex - family from a love lost - you are not forgotten and you are truly appreciated. Enjoy the holiday season!

To Emmett, Rod, and Pat at the Times News, my sincere gratitude I give to you for all the assignments given and the miles driven to games that I cover for the sports that I really do enjoy.

To Marta, the editor of this great publication, thanks for another year of printing my columns for my Saturday morning readers while they sip their cups of coffee.

Now there are these names too, who deserve my gratitude for extending the qualities of my life. Big foot Bill Carroll, Hall of Fame coach, Bill Nyers, former police night rider turned into novel writer, Mike Riley, New York train man, Michael D, BVT’s buddy, Josh, and Florida baseball Dan the Man, Sean from New Jersey, a great friend for whom on a beautiful beach one summer evening, I performed his marriage ceremony. Thanks to Sandor for his Sunday phone calls and I hope this year will bring even more.

To Voyage Media’s Nat Mundel and Robert Mitas, thanks for the Pathway Award for my motion picture project, “Upon a Field of Gold,” for best feature in development, our long-awaited movie that should begin production sometime very soon.

To my dear departed family and friends who stay alive inside of me, I send my love and appreciation into heaven for my mom and dad, my sisters, Nancy and Carol, my friends, George Sawicki, Ed Eodice, Tom Hicks, Brad Dilly, Bill Kovacs, Stew Jago, and Bob Ford.

And finally, to you, my dedicated readers of whatever flies out of my head and into your minds. I hope to continue to inspire and challenge your senses about anything and everything that makes us all think outside the box of normal reality.

Writers without readers are like baseball pitchers without arms. They must throw their pitches to catchers. For me, I pitch to you, my readers, my word catchers, who give me a few minutes of your precious weekend time to peruse whatever I’ve been wondering about lately.

I end this column with words spoken by inspirational speaker, Wayne Dyer. “Give yourself a gift of five minutes of contemplation in awe of everything you see around you. Go outside and turn your attention to the many miracles around you. This five minute a day regimen of appreciation and gratitude will help you focus your life in awe.”

Rich Strack can be reached at richiesadie11@gmail.com.