Dear Mr. Berg-Andersson,

I wanted to thank you again for your wonderful site. I continue to recommend it to everyone I know.

My words are so rustic in comparison to yours. However, I did want to share with you this letter I sent to many friends just before the Thanksgiving holiday. Some of those friends supported Bush; others voted for Gore. Although my writing is not as grounded in fact as yours, I arrive in the end at the same conclusion.

Thank you again for your all your assistance in helping us to understand where we are from, where we are, and what we can achieve.

Laura Jean Kreissl Oxford, MS
lkreissl@dixie-net.com

As I write on the eve of the celebration of Thanksgiving I hear so many people around me complaining about the woes of our country and particularly of their lives. I wish I could say in honesty that I never feel extremely depressed or just low, never worry or fear, never feel alone, completely unimportant, or unloved, but to do so would be untrue. There are moments, sometimes hours, in each day when I experience each one of those painful feelings and more. However, I learned long ago that happiness was a choice that only I could select for myself, that others that I love could enhance greatly, but that no amount of money or position could guarantee. So while others choose to focus on the negatives, I try to remind myself of the positives.

While I watch high profile, big money bickering over election results for the Presidency of our Nation, I see- as the only real losers- politicians from both major Parties and their self-serving big-money owners, slowly stripped of their shallow veneer of credibility. Who I do see as the eventual winner in this small dilemma in our history, is our Country and our American People.

Like many lessons, the learning and the embarrassment associated with it are often uncomfortable and unappreciated at the time. However, I choose to believe that once some time has passed we will recognize the greater benefit from this clash of spoiled brat name-calling and finger-pointing. The rift may take at least this one presidential tenure to begin to smooth out. However, no paid advertisements or glossy made-for-TV dramas could have better driven home the importance of each vote, the power of the average citizen.

If our Country is to survive and prosper, and I choose to believe it will, we must exercise our hard-earned right to vote, and insist that voter registration, voting days and times, instruments, time frames, and counting methods are clear and fair to all. Beyond the fear of a single candidate- a mere blip in time- losing this election, the real fear of the power-mongers surrounding them is the terrible realization that at least some of the population- enough of the population- will not simply forget this incident in the immediate cheering and jeering of the results. At least those of us who regularly do vote have been encouraged in the importance of our effort.

As well, improvements in the voting process will be demanded and will occur- painfully slowly no doubt- but improvements will occur. Hopefully, some of the improvements demanded will be in the extremely manipulative nomination processes and in election finance reform. From the shadows of our collective disillusionment, as well as the heavy dung slung from both sides, I choose to see a better and stronger country emerge: a country comprised of a more demanding electorate, a country reminded of the importance of Freedom.

For myself on this Thanksgiving, I pause to reflect on the little miracles that I too often take for granted: the love and caring of family and friends whether near or far, who forgive me graciously and too often, who chastise me sparingly, and who embrace me with their kindness willingly; my health, even failing, that allows me to appreciate so many of God's creations; for each morsel of food I have to eat, each time I am able to sleep in peace-- for these and for the tender balance of other emotions and intellect that truly make each second of my life of joyous miracle I am grateful and I thank you for being part of it.

Love, Laura Jean

This was sent to me by one of the people who- over much of the life of "The Green Papers" was a regular user of the site as well as an occasional e-correspondent of mine (she even signed our "Guestbook" [twice, in fact!]). Her comments provide a welcome, however slight, change of pace from all that has been said and done during- as well as all else swirling about- this whole election mess in Florida and she has graciously allowed us to post these words here in the "Vox Populi" section.

[NOTE: Ms. Kreissl's words have been subjected to minor editing, where appropriate, but nothing has been changed regarding the sense or tone of what she had originally written to me.]

RICHARD E. BERG-ANDERSSON
"The Green Papers" Staff