This year has been no better and no worse than most of those in my life, which means that as usual, I have plenty to be thankful for as this holiday season begins.

n Any such list would have to start with my wife, Fran, who has put up with me through sickness (mine, and plenty of it) and in health; through good temper (hers) and through bad (mine); and through our current kitchen makeover. I'm also thankful for:

* For my daughter Lucy, 14, who is beautiful, brainy, funny and always a delight;

* For my son Miles, a week away from turning 9, who is catnip for all the females in his life, is an avid Cub Scout and is still his Daddy's favorite person to toss the football with;

* For the new friends I've made in the past year, and for the old friends I've retained; at places like the Marietta Kiwanis Club, and Due West Methodist Church and Lost Mountain Martial Arts. And for friends old and new who were generous enough to let the Kirby family share their homes this year while on vacation in Washington, D.C., and on St. Simons Island.

* That Marietta has such a fine museum to chronicle its past - the Marietta Museum of History, which continues to be well-nurtured by founder Dan Cox and director Jan Galt. Check it out.

* I'm thankful that we've got world-class hospitals (WellStar Kennestone and WellStar South Cobb) in our own backyard. They'd better be good: The Kirby family sure uses them a lot!

* That even though I came late in life to being a coffee drinker, that Marietta boasts one of the tastiest and funkiest coffee places anywhere, Cool Beans on Mill Street. MDJ columnist Dick Yarbrough loves to write about "the exquisite corn-fried shrimp" at his favorite restaurant at St. Simon's. Well, those shrimp can't possibly be any more exquisite than the large dark chocolate mocha frappes at Cool Beans. Unfortunately, with the onset of winter weather soon, it may be a while before I enjoy another of those ice-based drinks - basically a mocha/espresso-flavored, non-alcoholic daiquiri. But if we get a window of warmer weather, I'm there!

* That the old Strand Theatre on Marietta Square has finally been restored and reopened after decades with its art deco splendor hidden underneath a coat of garish yellow paint, its interior in shambles. I figured it was a goner, eventually to be demolished. Instead, its conversion into a showpiece is complete (see Bill Kinney's column nearby). Its new marquee now lights up downtown at night so brightly you almost have to shield your eyes. Walking into its lobby reminds one of walking into the lobby of the Fabulous Fox in downtown Atlanta. The view from its outdoor mezzanine patio is stunning. Even better, the theater is in the hands of Earl Reece, late of Pebblebrook High School's School of the Arts. I said in this column last year that if there was someone in Cobb who could make the Strand go, it was Earl. And he has, big time!

* I'm thankful that the book I wrote last year, "The Bell Bomber Plant," about what's now the Lockheed Martin Plant in Marietta, proved so popular. And I'm thankful for the opportunity to write another book, "Marietta Revisited: Then & Now," with co-author Damien Guarnieri, which came out earlier this month, and which pairs old and new photos of city locales to show how things have changed - or not changed - through the decades.

* I'm thankful I live in a country where power changes hands peacefully instead of at the point of a gun. And while journalists aren't generally held in high regard here, barely more popular than lawyers, I'm thankful that this is a country where the killing and beating of journalists is the exception, not the rule. (For an example of the opposite, see what is happening in Russia these days.)

* And I'm thankful to still have a job in the newspaper industry, which seems in other places to be going the way of the passenger pigeon. I'm thankful to work for a publisher, Otis A. Brumby Jr., who believes in reporting both the good and the bad about a community, not just one or the other. (After I expressed a similar sentiment in this column last Thanksgiving, Mr. Brumby confided the following Monday that, "I hope you didn't perjure yourself when you wrote that." No, Otis. Not then, and not now.)

* I'm thankful also to have had the tutelage of MDJ associate editor Bill Kinney for the past two-and-a-half decades, and I hope he and Otis and MDJ ad-salesman extraordinaire Jay Whorton have got many more years' worth of tread on their tires, so to speak.

* I'm especially thankful for all of you who continue to read and subscribe to the Marietta Daily Journal.

* To all of them and all of you, I wish a Happy Thanksgiving!

Joe Kirby is Editorial Page Editor of the Marietta Daily Journal and co-author of the just-published "Marietta Revisited: Then & Now."