Today, I watched a honeybee

Today is the day before Thanksgiving. In Mexico Thanksgiving Day is not celebrated; perhaps the Mexican people have their own Day Of Thanksgiving. Perhaps, many of the people in Mexico do not feel such a holiday is worthy as there is much need here.

Today, the day before the United States Day of Thanksgiving, I was sitting on our second floor patio, overlooking the lake and enjoying the warm tropical sun, even though the air temperature was 53 degrees. I currently have bronchitis and laryngitis so I felt the sun would be healing therapy.

Directly below our patio is a large lemon tree. It reaches the second floor so it must be 10 or 12 feet tall and 20 feet or so in circumference. It is a "mature" tree, just as I am a "mature" human. The tree has a hundred or so lemons on it. Some are as small as apple seeds, some the size of pennies, some the size of fully mature fruit. The tree is life in miniature. The fruit is of all sizes, shapes, quality and color. Just as in our life. It is home to birds, spiders, caterpillars, various bugs, butterflies, moths and honeybees. In the summer we hang our canary cage on one of its limbs and it becomes a singing lemon tree.

Our tree blooms all year; even now during the cool months of late fall the tree is blooming. It bloomed and produced all summer during the tropical wet season. Now it has decided to try and produce during the cool, dry season. Such hope! Such optimism! Such life! I picked one of our lemons, peeled and ate the fruit and juice, while enjoying the sun. The juice was very tart, thus I knew it had a high quantity of vitamin C. It was slightly bitter, so I knew it possessed healing levels of limonene. Therefore, it should be helpful for my bronchitis and laryngitis.

While I munched on my fresh lemon, I leaned over the iron railing a saw a solitary honeybee working over the blossoms. A single bee, out on his own, working at a task nature had placed upon him. He was working in spite of the cool temperatures, infrequent blossoms and other obstacles. He worked patiently and deliberately. He went from blossom to blossom and stayed as long as it took for him to gather the nectar. At this time of year, the winter spiders have set their traps between twigs and leaves to gather their food to tide them through the winter months. I watched as the honeybee, deftly dipped under a web and escaping it's entrapment continued to the next blossom. To continue his work.

Since he was the only honeybee I saw, all the nectar gathering, all the rewards of his work would be for he and his hive. Bringing home the bacon, so to speak.

It reminded me of people who work at jobs that they have been directed to and they go do their jobs day after day, in spite of obstacles. Sometimes they work by themselves, sometimes when the "conditions" are not conducive, sometimes when they don't feel well, sometimes when all others have quit for the season. They do it because just as the honeybee does, there is work to do. So they do it. They do it for themselves and their families.

Honeybees are the unsung heroes of the natural world, they contribute so much to other species and gather so little respect. They are dying out (a massive die-off) as a species now, due to bacterial/viral infections, pesticides and the maniacal Genetically Modified Foods (GMO's) foods. When the honeybees are all gone, then we'll know how important they were for us. Just as the Navajo wise man asked, "When all the prairie dogs are gone, who'll sing for the rain?"

Our unsung heroes of our society; the traveling salesperson, the factory worker who produces widgets for sale, others who produce tangible items for our use, teachers-who used to be able to actually teach, instead now act as baby sitters, the small farmer who provided most of our food, the waterworks persons who have one of the most important jobs in the country which is providing clean and safe drinking water supply from an ever decreasing source, the herb collectors who could help keep people healthy, instead of just treating symptoms as doctors now do; these unsung heroes have fallen by the wayside. They no longer count in our new hero-worship. They have been cast in the waste bin of life. Producers are now an antiquated bunch. Useless, as the honeybee, in this new world which has come into being.

The new heroes in the US are now the military and Blackwater mercenaries proudly fighting in unprovoked and unnecessary wars wherever they feel the need, killing men, women and children who have done nothing wrong but are then named "insurgents" after their deaths, military types using drone aircraft to fire missles at Afghan wedding parties-killing all- and then tout statistics of killing "enemy combatants", police who use their tasers on anything that moves, laughing as if it is a game, instead of "talking" with someone, torturers on our government payroll who kidnap innocent people and torture them for years in the name of the United States people, the bankers who steal as much a they can while producing absolutely nothing out of nothing but they keep the goods, the stock traders who sell and make money from selling bundles of nothing to each other so all the vermin can make lots of money while those who are retired and trusted these rats watch their retirement disappear into overseas banks, the Congresscritters and Senators who receive most of their pay from lobbyists and then vote for laws to help only the lobbyists, while ignoring the poor and disappearing middle-class. The Treasury Secretary, who came from the same den of vipers on Wall Street, demands (and receives) unlimited amounts of money to spend as he sees fit to help his buddies in the treasury banks continue to make their billions from the taxpayers, sports "stars" who are paid multi-millions of dollars while contributing absolutely nothing to society and while these "stars" arrogantly ignore laws and common sense (some who see nothing wrong with raising pit-bulls to tear each other apart while these "stars" bet money on the winner! The media, especially Fox and CNN who are nothing more than paid government shills who will not or cannot tell the truth-what is really happening-to anyone. These are today's heroes. None of these creatures produce anything of value to anyone but themselves. They never have. They never will. They simply take. And if their lips are moving you can be sure they are lying!

My little honeybee that I watched this morning, goes about his life doing what he loves and helps many other species survive. Even when conditions are not good for him, he goes out each day and provides his way in the world as nature intended. He does not do harm to others, he does not steal, he does not lie. He shares what he produces for the good of the tribe. I respect him. I love him. I am thankful for him and what he contributes to the world.

I cannot say the same for the for the latter day "heroes" I mentioned above. They are the vermin of the earth. For them, I will not be celebrating Thanksgiving this year. I do not cheer their success. I will continue to be thankful each day as it unfolds and I will continue to watch as nature works its magic in small sequences and which never fails to amaze me. For this I am thankful.