What I’m thankful for on Thanksgiving: rivalries, dogs, referees and Ron Green
For decades, Charlotte Observer sports columnist Ron Green Sr. wrote a Thanksgiving Day column that people read aloud to each other before they dug into turkey and football. Of the thousands of stories he penned for us, it was that annual column — a list of what he was thankful for — that became his most well-known trademark.
Ron died in Charlotte at age 95 on Sept. 18, 2024. He passed away a little less than a year after his wife Beth died in October 2023. They were married 68 years and she made an annual appearance in his Thanksgiving column.
At Ron’s memorial service, they started with the national anthem. He had asked for that, figuring it was the song he had heard more than any other since it preceded most of the sporting events he covered.
Although he retired in 1999, Ron still wrote occasionally for us. His final Thanksgiving column came in 2019. About two years after that, I called him and asked if he would give me his blessing to resurrect his idea.
“Do it,” he said. “And have fun with it.”
After my first Thanksgiving column was published, in 2021, Ron left me a kind voicemail, which is the sort of thing he did because he was always a generous colleague. I have saved it ever since, and listening to it each year before I begin this Thanksgiving column is now one of my personal traditions. At one point, he said: “It’s not an easy job to try to remember everybody, is it?”
No, it isn’t, and I’ve left a lot out here. But in Ron Green’s honor, I hope this list — some of it sports-related, some of it not — reminds you to be grateful for the people and the beauty surrounding your own life. It’s around. You just have to look for it.
What I’m thankful for in 2024:
▪ People who actually pick up the phone when you call them. And yes, I text first. I’m not a monster.
▪ Officials, umpires, referees and judges. I don’t know how you do it, nor how you put up with what happens during and after you do it. But thank you.
▪ Clemson-South Carolina football, about to play a huge Palmetto Bowl at Death Valley on Saturday. UNC-Duke basketball, a twice-a-year blue masterpiece. Your own high school vs. your rival high school. Sports and superhero movies are both better with a worthwhile nemesis.
▪ Volunteer youth coaches who care more about the kids than the final score.
▪ The person who, sometime in the future, designs a completely silent leaf blower.
▪ Friends who ask “how are you,” then actually stop to hear the answer.
▪ That Nat King Cole song where the chestnuts are roasting over an open fire. Hint: Don’t ruin this for yourself by actually eating roasted chestnuts.
▪ The Curry family, which long ago went global but never forgot its Charlotte roots.
▪ Dawn Staley and the South Carolina women’s basketball team, constructing a dynasty before our eyes.
▪ Everyone connected to the Lovin’ Life Music Fest (coming back for Year 2 in May 2025) and Concert for Carolina, which needs an encore, too. Hello, Luke Combs?
▪ Carlos Alcaraz vs. Frances Tiafoe in Charlotte on Dec. 6, followed by the ACC football championship on Dec. 7. The ACC men’s basketball tournament back in Charlotte in March. The PGA — one of golf’s four majors — coming back to Quail Hollow Club in May. NASCAR’s all-star race, back in North Wilkesboro, also in May. App State vs. Charlotte in August, to open the 2025 college football season in Bank of America Stadium.
Part of the joy in sports, as in life, is the anticipation.
▪ Anything written by Ann Patchett, Stephen King, Erik Larson, Harlan Coben or the late, great Pat Conroy.
▪ A hug from a child.
▪ The Charlotte Sports Foundation, figuring out how to bring big events to the Queen City again and again.
▪ Athletes who retain a blue-collar mentality despite magnificent talent: the Panthers’ Chuba Hubbard, the Hornets’ Brandon Miller and Charlotte FC’s Kristijan Kahlina among them.
▪ The Independent Picture House, exactly what an independent cinema should be. We premiered “9/11/74” — The Charlotte Observer’s 30-minute documentary about the nearly forgotten 1974 Eastern Airlines plane crash in Charlotte — there in September. The sold-out crowd included survivors, victims’ families and first responders on that horrible day 50 years ago. It was a powerful night. Never heard of it? You can watch the documentary for free on YouTube, where it’s been viewed more than 250,000 times.
▪ The thousands of people who serve others before themselves on Thanksgiving Day, as well as all of the people associated with Hurricane Helene relief. Godspeed to all of the North Carolina mountain communities.
▪ Comedian Nate Bargatze’s standup routine.
▪ Supermoons. Exit row seats. Triples. Cook Out milkshakes. Handwritten letters. Fake punts. Last-lap passes for the lead. Locally owned coffee shops.
▪ Dogs. Not so much cats.
▪ Teachers. Guidance counselors. Principals. High school coaches. All of them perpetually underpaid, fighting the good fight.
▪ The Firebird sculpture on South Tryon Street, an 18-foot-tall ode to mirrored whimsy. Try to walk by it without smiling.
▪ The extraordinary independent bookstores of the Charlotte area, including but not limited to Park Road Books in Charlotte, Main Street Books in Davidson and Goldberry Books in Concord. Places to get happily lost inside.
▪ A cup of hot coffee and a printed copy of the newspaper. Still.
▪ Saquon Barkley’s reverse hurdle over a defender, still one of the most astounding things I’ve seen all year.
▪ A real, actual snowfall in Charlotte that shuts us all down for a couple of days. It’s been forever, hasn’t it?
▪ Faith, football and — most of all — families, in all their disarray and devotion. Man, I love mine. Enjoy yours, have a second piece of pumpkin pie and Happy Thanksgiving!
