Lucia Hotton is among the many people and experiences I am thankful for this Thanksgiving. Hotton, who is 94 and lives in Weymouth, snail mailed to the newsroom a short story titled "The Absent Turkey," inspired by the Thanksgivings of yesteryear. An editor sent it my way. Every November, I like to come up with a Thanksgiving column with themes of family, gratitude, good deeds and a touch of nostalgia.

This year, Hotton has saved me that task, which is actually often a pleasure. Her story became this column. "This piece is a light-hearted reminiscence of past Thanksgivings at my mother's Sicilian-American table," she wrote. "The lack of turkey was made up for by an abundance of food that reflected our heritage, which did notinclude cranberry sauce and yams. Those long-ago days are fun to recall and now, at 94, I find they haven't faded."