True good fortune

We all are changed, as if by war waged on home soil. But we can be thankful to be reminded in such a cruel way of what really matters. Life does go on. FISHTRAP HOLLOW, Miss. -Weeks after Katrina, a friend was walking through the rubble that paved the streets in Pass Christian, Miss. He found, sealed and intact, the first installment of Ken Burns' documentary "The Civil War."

He took the video home, washed off the mud, and watched it.

The Civil War has new relevance in the states where I live, Mississippi and Louisiana. Once again, landscapes and lives are rearranged, antebellum homes gone with the wind, libraries and schools looted by nature.

Making my annual Thanksgiving list is easier this year than it's ever been. Anyone alive with a roof over her head be it blue or any other color -should be thankful. And I am.

It's been an awful year so far, for so many, and, make no mistake, continues to be. The basic comforts seem more important when you see neighbors stripped of them. I am, in a new way, thankful for electric lights and running water and a well-stocked Piggly Wiggly.

And I find myself caring a lot less about other things, material things, which suddenly seem so unevenly distributed. How many dishes, TVs, knickknacks, bedspreads, lamps and shoes can one family use?

Even politics, which last year consumed me, have been parboiled down to their fundamentals. It's not politics per se that matter. It is basic philosophy. Some care about others; some do not. The ones who do not should be run out of office, and fast. Let them make their millions in the private sector.

A young mother with three sons, her own mother and her grandmother -four generations -are living together in a single-wide house trailer on my street in Henderson, LA. The three women lost three homes when Hurricane Rita demolished little Cameron, La. But they are glad to be alive, together and already situated in a new home, however humble.

One warm afternoon I watched as the young mother sat in the grass and refereed the boys, who were racing. Again and again they ran squealing from one end of the small lot to the other. The children laughed, and their mother laughed with them. The boys played till dark, and the young woman stayed, sitting on the ground and swatting mosquitoes, grateful for the opportunity.

I am thankful to have watched. Something about that simple scene, achingly sweet in its normalcy, said volumes about what constitutes good fortune -family, and health, and laughter.

We all are changed, as if by war waged on home soil. But we can be thankful to be reminded in such a cruel way of what really matters. Life does go on.

I am thankful to have spent a couple of hours this fall with a talented whittler and a good man, Bill Henry. He makes beautiful things with common woods and the most rudimentary of tools, a pocketknife.

I am grateful to a Paris doctor, whose name I am sorry to say I cannot remember but whose face I will never forget, who last spring explained to me, in English, the minor surgery I was about to have.

I am grateful, too, for the invaluable help and cherished friendship of a good editor, Bethany Murray, who is leaving after many years. She made my work life easy.

I am lucky, still, to have a good veterinarian, Jim Perkins, who takes care of my crass menagerie, dashing to meet us for emergencies that seem to come with disturbing frequency.

Which reminds me to say I am thankful for my dogs, worth every bit of trouble and expense. They make life bearable.

Among the other lessons Katrina taught us was the fact that dogs and cats are as much a part of some families as children.

Don't ever expect us to leave them behind.

(c) 2005 Rheta Grimsley Johnson Distributed by King Features Syndicate