Have a grumpy Thanksgiving

This week’s Gray News editorial was written by a man who dubs himself “old and stubborn” and boy does it show. Biasbuster cannot bust the news in the paper this week because there wasn’t any. Christmas Parade alert, church news, the paper is and always will be a bulletin board.

Editor Mr. Clark’s editorials though, show the same odd mix of pessimism, disapproval, and condescension that Mr. Clark is so well known for subjecting us to.

Editors traditionally use the editorial box at this time of year to offer well-wishes, inspire, and/or lighten up from the year’s heavy issues. However, Mr. Clark uses the Thanksgiving week editorial box to belittle his readers, remind us of his pessimism, and generally leave a sour taste in our brain after reading his woefully negative message.

His first line starts us off with the usual negativity by reminding us that not only he, but all of us, constantly ‘complain,’ ‘grouse,’ and ‘gripe.’ I do not know about you but I am generally more cheerful than that. The next part informs us that we “curl up around our woes.” Mr. Clark is assuming wrongly that we all have woes, or that we focus on them, or that we share them incessantly.

Even trying to when extol the virtues of his wife, he says that she “has put up with me for 51 years, which means she has had plenty of cause to investigate the joys of the single life.” Wow, what a ringing endorsement. Wouldn’t it be nice to read something warm! Like, like, um, how about this! “I love my wife so very much and I am glad we share this life together, thankful that she and I have had the time together that we have had.” I’d much rather read something like that, especially at Thanksgiving. Wouldn’t you?

Did you ever notice that when Mr. Clark does state an unvarnished compliment or positive notion, that he always takes it back right away with something negative? He cannot, will not, and does not go whole hog into optimist land. Like this: “I'm thankful I live in Gray, Maine, too, although I admit it sometimes drives me crazy.” I”d much rather read a plain old compliment, not the old bait and switch.

He does take the time to insincerely remind us that he is grateful to the councilors who donate their “time and talent” to the town.” Which is patently laughable when he worked so hard to remove one of them and used the editorial box to tell us in no uncertain terms how they were unworthy of that position, over and over again, and angrily, explicitly, and hatefully, too.

Finally, the end of Mr. Clark’s less than warm editorial, he thanks us for being us. I am not making this up. After admitting the town drives him crazy, after listlessly endorsing his long marriage and wanly compliments his wife, after two paragraphs of writing that use numerous synonyms for “complain,” and a two-faced mention to the councilors he so hated for most of the year, Mr. Clark thanks us for being us.

Aren’t you thankful the Gray News was bought out and we may not have to endure another “holiday greeting” from Mr. Raymond P. Clark? Happy Thanksgiving!