(An update from 2024)

By Bob Gaydos

  This was going to be a rant, then I remembered it was Thanksgiving and I can always rant about the same stuff and the same people another day, so it’s going to be a gratitude column. Better for my health and yours. Better to be thankful than bitter. Better to enjoy the day. (It’ll also be shorter.)

   So what am I thankful for? Let’s start with the confidence, after 60 years of writing, to know that sometimes it’s OK to end a sentence with a preposition.  Or a proposition. Thankful, in large part, that at my age, although some components of my body have slowed down or simply broken, the brain seems willing and able to do this writing stuff every day. Sometimes, it insists.

  Thankful, of course, for readers across the years, who have been there to give me encouragement, criticism and feedback and continue to do so today. Without you, I’m an old man talking to myself.

  I’m thankful for the teachers, colleagues and mentors I’ve had along the way and even the bosses who didn’t appreciate my unique talent.  Although I didn’t appreciate it at the time, they taught me humility and how to look for a new job.

  On a more personal level, I’m thankful for growing up in Bayonne, N.J., in the 1950’s. Soda shops, sock hops, Johnny Mathis. Sinatra, too. For family and friends, old and new, who have provided love and support and still help me to be open to new challenges, new ideas, new vitamin supplements.

  Thankful for science and the fact that I have successfully gone from typing my story or column on an Underwood manual typewriter to a Taiahiro Gaming Keyboard, which takes my iPhone hostage. Thank you, Gilbert.

  For Max and Zack and filling the birdfeeders on a sunny day. For sushi, salt and vinegar potato chips, thin, crisp, New York pizza, Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, baseball, tall trees, an occasional hot dog, coffee, guacamole, artists and poets, cataract surgery, Bill Wilson, first responders, wonton noodle soup, music, food in the fridge, talented surgeons, electric blankets, horses and dogs. Cats, too.

Thankful in these times of political turmoil and anger for departed friends like Victor, who constantly reminded me, “Bobby, isn’t it great to be present in your own life?” Once upon a time, people used to call me Bobby. Thankful for Evelyn, who always reminded me that everything was another “fine” growth opportunity. And for discovering Eckhart Tolle, whose message on my phone keeps reminding me that there is only now. There is no next. Got it.

  I’m also thankful that I’ve learned how to get in and when to get out. I tried to keep this under 400 words, but I guess I have more to be thankful for than I thought. Thankful for that.

 Happy Thanksgiving to all you loyal, wonderful readers, who give me the incentive to keep on doing this every day.

Bob

(Please don’t be shy. Thank you for sharing your thankful thoughts in the comments below with the rest of us.)

Max

One of the many things falling between the cracks here with work and painting is marketing! Eek!

“Rough at Hand,” my show at the Wallkill River School Gallery, is OPEN! It is up for the month of February, and there is a reception on Saturday, from 5-7 p.m.

I had a once-in-a lifetime experience as I hung the show last Saturday. I’d just gotten it all up, and made a price list. I was sitting down contemplating, when in walked two people who had bought paintings from me last year. They love my work – and between them, Saturday, they bought five paintings. When they asked if they could take them, I said sure!

I had extras with me, and so I rehung, repriced – and thanked my lucky stars not only for the money that those two were willing to part with, but also, and even more, for the fact that they loved my work. Honestly, there is something so moving about that, so sustaining, so life-affirming, that it makes my heart beat fast now, just thinking about it.

Please come to the opening! I am just as excited as I could be about my new work, and it is more precious than ever to me, as my time to paint is so scarce these days.

The Wallkill River School Gallery is at 232 Ward St. (Route 17K) in Montgomery, NY. The website is wallkillriverschool.com.

For those of you in Connecticut and Rhode Island, I will be having a show in March at the Lighthouse Gallery in Groton, with the amazing Laura Maiolo. More on that as it draws closer.

For those of you in NY, see you Saturday!