Thanksgiving Essay, Research Paper

Although most people love Christmas, my favorite Holiday is Thanksgiving. The five hundred year old holiday has been celebrated in my family for generations and even though it is not as celebrated by the majority of the general population, it has remained an important family tradition. Each year I look forward to seeing all my relatives because I rarely see them. Because so many advancements have been made in the area of transportation all of my relatives live millions of miles away. Despite the fact that it only takes my farthest relative about an hour to get to my house, she insists that it is simply not worth it to travel for that long for no reason other than a short visit. Oh well, there s just no arguing with Aunt Sue. She s simply too old and too set in her ways. She still refuses to eat red meat because she s afraid that our high-tech whatchamacallit, as she prefers to call our state-of-the-art Kitchen Mate 5000, does not cook the meat to the proper temperature to kill any bacteria lurking within. On numerous occasions I ve tried to explain that all the meat we consume has been chemically treated so that all the bacteria has already been killed, but she does not want to hear it. Even if there was some type of bacteria, the KM would detect it and respond accordingly by killing the bacteria for us. Aunt Sue is 112 years old this year so I guess I can give her a break.

I think that some of the greatest and most fascinating advancements in the last one hundred years have been made in the area of health sciences. Scientists found ways, through much laboratory research, to expand a human s life expectancy to 135 years. Although this seemed a great feat back in 2050, today the main focus has been on disease control. In 2078, AIDS, one of the number one threats to man in the late 1900 s, was cured by a man named Joseph Kilpatrick. He simply created a pill that wiped out the disease within twenty-four hours. I learned about this disease in my sophomore year at the Stonington High School Institute for Girls. I couldn t believe the numbers that this one little disease killed, and is now as simple to cure as the common cold, which has also been cured. I never really understood how scientists could be baffled for so many years over such a simple ailment. Oh well, as my grandmother has said, science then was not as advanced as it is now.

I must also say that I am really very thankful for Bill Gates; without him all of the things I have now would be non-existent. Just about everything in my life is computer operated. My home security system is run on a series of chips that hold ten sets of fingerprints, eye scans, and voice match-ups so that nobody can get into my house except my family and I. All of my kitchen utensils are run by the main computer in the center Island that also controls all cooking and any clean up. Thanksgiving dinner is so easy to prepare these days. All I hear about is how when my great grandmother was growing up it took anywhere from 4-6 hours to cook a turkey. Now it takes 4-6 minutes with my KM and main computer.

The only downfall to all this advancement is that now I have nothing to do. I wonder how I would get along if something happened and the system shut down. I don t think I have much to worry about though; everything is backed up by batteries now last a lifetime. My older relatives constantly tell me how much easier life is now and I believe them. It s funny how they all talk about the old days. Especially my great grandfather, we call him Gramps. A lot has happened since the days of old Gramps youth. He always tells stories of how he drove a car on the ground and how people would die in car accidents before computers took over that aspect of life as well. He also talks about how houses could burn down and how sometimes students had to do work without their TI-86000 Personal Assistants. I guess I really do have a lot to be thankful for after all, being able to see all the advancement. I can only guess what the next one hundred years will bring.