THANKSGIVING IS THE CONSENSUS HOLIDAY FOR EVERY AMERICAN. Jews may not celebrate Christmas, nor Christians Ramadan, but all of us pause on the last Thursday in November to give thanks, particularly for the abundance that is America’s most persistent and bewitching characteristic. Even most non-believers pause to appreciate what we have.

I’ve spent time overseas, both during my military service and since, and my travels have impressed upon me just how opulent life is here in the States.

During my recent trip to Europe, we stayed in hotels that, by European standards, are in the mid-range of accommodations in terms of both amenities and price. The contrast with the equivalent American lodgings was stark.

In our hotel in Paris, the lobby was perhaps 15 by 20 feet, the elevator was literally half the size of an old-fashioned phone booth, and our beds were little more than cots in a snug little room.

A month earlier, my family went down to the Central Coast to accompany Mom on her 62nd high school reunion, and we stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, a mid-priced, thoroughly ordinary American motel chain. The bathroom in our room was bigger than my entire Paris hotel room, and the room had two queen-sized beds and ample space for luggage, a big-screen television and a separate sitting area with a table and chairs.

Speaking of space, I was reminded in my European travels just how much space America has in comparison to Europe. You could fit all of France, Italy, Germany and Spain into the space between the Sierras and the Rockies, and still have hundreds of thousands of square miles of sagebrush and salt flats left over.

My first encounter with the way much of the rest of the world lives was during my Army enlistment, when I was deployed to Korea.

My squad set up a position on the banks of a river out in the boonies, and I saw women from a nearby village washing their laundry in the river. A child waded across in freezing water to try and sell us local delicacies. (As I recall, we bought pretty much everything he had to sell, more out of pity than necessity, though it helped that we were getting sick of field rations at that point.)

So I recognize that we Americans have ample cause to be thankful for the material blessings of our land. But we have so much more than that to be grateful for.

It has occurred to me more than once that there are still many places in the world where even the relatively mild critiques I offer in this humble space could get me imprisoned or even killed. I’m grateful to live in a country where that would be all but unthinkable.

I am grateful, too, to live in a place of such cultural and artistic richness — as I’ve mentioned before, I particularly love jazz (perhaps the quintessential American music), but also the brash and inventive nature of practically every other form of artistic expression in the States.

I am grateful for the brimming decency and goodness of my fellow citizens. I’ve been to most states in the Union (I have yet to visit Florida, South Dakota and Alaska), and everywhere I go I make a point to meet the locals. I have almost never been disappointed in the people I’ve encountered.

Americans are famous the world over for their friendliness to strangers, and this reflects my own experience. Whenever I’ve had to fix a flat tire by the side of the road, I’ve had people pull over and offer to help. Even in famously brusque New York, asking for directions from a stranger has often led to a sort of impromptu conference on the street, where several people will debate the most efficient way to get me to my destination — “A cab at this hour? He’s better off taking the subway and then switching to the LIRR train at Penn Station …”

Speaking more personally, I’m grateful to have a job I love working with co-workers I enjoy. I love writing this column, and having a forum in which to bleat and plead with my fellow citizens.

But I am most grateful for having a great family in this wonderful town with whom to share this holiday. The Talbots are a famously rowdy bunch (five Irish boys meant our childhood was more or less one continuous brawl), but we love each other and enjoy each other’s company, and the holidays are like a big, loud, joyous reunion. I have a new grand-niece who (in my humble opinion) is the cutest baby ever, and I am grateful to be able to see her this holiday.

What are you grateful for this Thanksgiving?

Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand. He works for a tech start-up in San Francisco.

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