I’m really looking forward to gathering with friends and family over the upcoming Thanksgiving long weekend to enjoy good food and each other’s company. I have so many things to be thankful for that when I take a minute to think about it, I’m really thankful for almost everything in my life. My good health and loving family are at the top of my thankful list, but I’m also thankful for the things I take for granted most of the time, such as a safe and comfortable place to sleep at night. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones. ***** The book titled Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, written by Jared Diamond, won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction in 1998. I read it in 2001. The description of how smallpox devastated pre-Columbus, Indigenous North American people really changed my understanding of that time in history. Essentially, smallpox was first introduced to North America when the Spanish first sailed to what is now Mexico. As this was a new disease, the North American population hadn’t built up immunity to it and it spread quickly and with devastating effect. By the time Christopher Columbus arrived, approximately 95 per cent of the Indigenous people had perished from smallpox and only a small percentage of survivors remained.
