I hope to complete some minor repair work today to my family room ceiling. An overflowing second-story toilet led to me drilling holes in the family room ceiling to drain the water that had begun to impact the ceiling drywall and taped seams.

The day after the overflow, I contacted my homeowners insurance company to see about options for repairing the damage. My brief interaction with two tradesmen who came to provide repair estimates, and a third who talked with me by phone, reminded me of the sharp differences in integrity that you see within the trades. It also reminded me of a true story that involved my grandfather and the construction company for which he worked.

First, here’s a summary of my recent experiences with local tradesmen. The day after I contacted my insurance company, an employee of the insurance company called my home and spoke with my wife. The employee said that her husband was in construction, and he could come over to provide an estimate. Kim called me at work, and I agreed to ask for a half-day’s vacation so that I could be there to talk with the construction worker.

Have you ever gotten a sense that a conversation was going to become uncomfortable just before it did? That happened to me when the husband of the insurance company employee took a brief glance at my family room ceiling, and said, “What’s your deductible…$500?”

I confirmed that, and was about to say that the deductible had nothing to do with his estimate…but then, with a wink, he let me know how it had everything to do with his estimate.

“Yeah, this will be about $500,” he said, studying my face. “But there’s no need for you to have to pay the deductible. We can tell the insurance company that it’ll be $1,200, and that’ll cover my cost, your deductible and the cost of your painter.”

My son, who had joined us just after the contractor had begun his “inspection,” looked at me with a “what’s going on?” expression. I felt like telling the contractor off for suggesting that we agree on insurance fraud, but I guess I was too hardened by seeing it and hearing about it as I grew up in Chicago. I just wanted him out of my house.

As I closed the door and looked at my son, he blurted out, “What a creep!” I nodded in agreement, and silently thanked God for a son who understands the difference between right and wrong.

I then called a second contractor to talk about the ceiling repair. He was a referral from a neighbor. As I was scheduling time for him to come over to give me an estimate, this second contractor also asked about the deductible. I later told him not to bother coming.

Contrast that with a neighborhood “handy man” who was a referral from another neighbor. This person was honest and straightforward, and said that he was better at electrical work and plumbing than drywall taping and mudding. “I usually put on the first coat of mud, and then pay someone else to finish it off,” he said. He also said that the ceiling seemed to have dried quickly, with minimal damage. I wouldn’t need to have the extensive repair that the “professional” contractor recommended.

Over the past couple of days, with the help of my brother, Scott, I’ve repaired the ceiling. All that’s left to do is to sand it for the final time, and wait for the painter. As I was laying on the final coat of mud, I thought about a true story that my mom and grandmother told me about my grandfather, Clarence Fieberg. It was a story about the integrity of my grandfather and the construction company for which he worked.

I’ll tell that story in Part Two of this post. I may email it to the dishonest contractors who work around here.

In recent years, my appreciation of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday has grown. Thanksgiving is different than the highly commercialized Christmas holiday which follows in a month. Non-Christians (and, sadly, many Christians as well) use Christmas as an opportunity to covet things they don’t have.

Thanksgiving, on the other hand, provides an opportunity to be grateful for what we already have been given, in context of spirituality, health, relationships and “worldly goods.”

I slept in a bit today, a benefit of a holiday from work. Still, I began the day as usual, with time spent reading a bit of the Bible, along with a related devotion. Today’s devotion quoted a proclamation made in 1863 by then-President Abraham Lincoln.

I’m not well-versed in the study of speeches or proclamations; for that, I defer to DaMurr, David Murray. As editor of Vital Speeches of the Day, Murray has shared many examples of well-written prose.

Yesterday, Murray reprinted a very touching account by military veteran Stephen Banko, of events during one Thanksgiving lived in Vietnam during the war. It made me say thanks to the thousands of military men and women who are spending this Thanksgiving away from home, family and friends. I pray for their safety and honor their service to the nation.

President Lincoln designated Thanksgiving as an official U.S. holiday with a proclamation he signed in 1863. It was during another major military operation: the Civil War. As I read the proclamation, I thanked God for all of the things He has given me, and for all of the things He has taken away.

Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation
Washington, DC—October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln

By the President:
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.

I had to leave the family room just now, as Access Hollywood began its reporting of Oprah Winfrey’s BIG ANNOUNCEMENT regarding her decision to end her long-running television show.

I didn’t run out because I was overcome by emotion over losing Oprah. It was the absolutely idiotic fawning by Access Hollywood’s on-air “talent” that caused me to race to this blog. Someone at “Ground Zero” needs to tell the rest of the globe that Chicago will be okay without Oprah.

“Everyone in Chicago was in shock today” at the news that Oprah is ending her show, according to Access Hollywood. Now, I admit that I work and live in the northern suburbs of Chicago, so my home and office may not actually be considered Ground Zero to some of the entertainment reporters frantically covering Oprah’s life-changing announcement. But my personal observations indicate that, to the majority of my fellow Chicago-area residents, Oprah just isn’t really that significant.

Sure, we might wonder how much she will be throttling down the Oprah, Inc. money machine after a quarter century or so of work. But the truth is that I haven’t seen more than 10 minutes of any Oprah show in the past three to five years. I don’t have an Oprah jones.

Before you label me as one of the few around here who “don’t get it,” you need to know that while I was working, not a single coworker burst into tears or started shouting, “Oprah, Oprah…why???!!” As I drove home, not a single driver in any vehicle swerved across the median headed toward a light post or pond in a suicidal response to the reality that the Oprah Winfrey Show was coming to an end.

As I pulled into my neighborhood, not a single neighbor had started a candlelight vigil, with flowers, pictures of Oprah and cards with messages such as, “All of Chicago is in shock, Oprah, and we will NEVER be able to watch television again.”

Bye-bye, Oprah. Someone probably will let me know when your last show airs. I won’t be watching it; I have a life.