An interesting fact I ran across the other day said the word “thanksgiving” appears in the New International Version of the Bible 32 times.

Then that’s where my obsession with Google took over. I then asked the following, “how many times does the word ‘thanks’ appear in the Bible?” And is here what I found out:

In the King James version …

• The word thanks appears 73 times

• The word thank appears 27 times

• The word thanked appears three times

• The word thankful appears three times

• The word thankfulness appears one time

• The word thanking appears one time

• The word thankworthy appears one time

Up until this little Google search, I didn’t even know “thankworthy” was a word. Now, my challenge is to use it correctly in a sentence.

During this week, and especially Thursday, we will say “happy Thanksgiving” to our loved ones, our friends, our co-workers and random people we happen to be standing in line at the grocery store, clutching desperately to the last package of butter and that one container of beef bouillon that your mother said she needed.

We will say it in passing, at the end of nearly every phone conversation and as a refreshing change to how we sign off each email.

But, while it is the word or phrase of choice this week, how do we do as individuals, as groups or as a people of continuing that sense of well-wishing beyond this week, the time around Christmas and New Years?

What do we do in the middle of May when the rush of end of the school year stresses are upon us or better yet on Black Friday when we are elbowing small children to get to that blender you never wanted or needed, but you must have because it’s a $5 door buster special? Saying thanks or thank you, you’re welcome, or any of the other necessary niceties a cordian society demands is something I am working hard to teach my children.

There’s just something special about saying “yes ma’am,” “no sir,” “may I please,” “excuse me,” or something along those lines. It is those manners, those manners engrained in me by my parents and the Marine Corps, that are not only nice things to say but are signs of respect to someone I don’t even know. And that is something that should be learned, taught and practiced far more often than one week out of the year.

We have far too much to be grateful in our lives to not be polite to one another, polite to those we know and those we do not know.

On this, our designated week of thanksgiving, I want to thank my parents for the lessons they instilled in my life, the manners in which they stressed and the foundation for which my life has been built.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your entire family. Enjoy the time with one another.

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Tim Reeves is publisher of The Vicksburg Post. You may reach him at tim.reeves@vicksburgpost.com.