As I chowed down on the last of the left-over turkey and sopped up the gravy, it occurred to me that one of the many things I should be most grateful for is the fact that somehow my life’s yins have always been balanced out with yangs.

In my 48 years I have lived through a lot of world strife including the Cuban Missile Crisis and Cold War; race riots of the 1960s; the Kennedt and MLK assassinations; Vietnam and a number of other “conflicts” around the globe; Kent State; bad acid and Paraquat; the Beatles break-up; the Arab oil embargo and oil crisis; Watergate; Iran-Contra; Three-Mile Island, 9/11; the War on Terror; and global warming.

There have been some scary characters in the forefront, too, such as Charlie Manson, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Pol Pot, Popa Doc Duvalier, Osama Bin Laden, and last but not least, ET, Cabbage Patch Kids, the Transformers and that annoying purple terror, Barney.

My generation is instilled with fear of “the Man,” nuclear holocaust, terrorist attacks and alien invasions. Even the cartoons gave us nightmares. Is it any wonder we’re a nervous bunch?

But with the bad also came much good. For example, Civil Rights have come a long way. We now have a black president in office. We also won the Cold War, the Soviet Union fell, as did the Berlin Wall. The Women’s Liberation movement made great strides to stifle chauvinists; we got the first men on the moon; the Peace Corps started; apartheid laws were repealed and Nelson Mandela was freed.

Our generation also has had some very positive and influential characters, including John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Billy Graham, Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa and John Lennon.

Yes, this is the day after Thanksgiving. But we should not stop giving thanks. I leave you with the words of Edward Sanford Martin: “Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.”

(Write us at 268 W. View Point Dr. Nogales, Ariz., 85621 or manuel.coppola@nogalesinternational.com.)