published on April 30, 1979, and suggested that it should be repeated.

There seems to be a strange and growing Bermudian tendency to act by complaint out of a sense of depression. The natural Bermudian optimism and buoyancy appear to be giving way to pessimism and a sense of gloom.

We may be wrong but it seems that Bermudians who once basked in a perpetual glow about their Island are developing a kind of national whine. We do not think that this has yet extended to Bermuda in general but it does seem to apply to things Bermudian.

If we are right it is a great pity because few places in the world have so good a way of life, so successful a lifestyle or so orderly and safe an existence.

The quality of life in Bermuda is plainly superior to almost anywhere one can mention, yet Bermudians complain. Perhaps we have come to take for granted the good things in life and the complaints are related to wanting more and more for less and less effort.

All things are relative and it is always possible to yearn for Utopia but Bermuda has gone farther and faster along the road to Utopia than most of this world's people. It is not perfect by any means but the seeds of total success have been well sown and well watered by previous generations and by Bermudians of today.

We take safe streets, a rarity in many countries, for granted and complain about the Police.

We take good communications as a fact of life and damn the Post Office.

Our air is clean and tangy with salt yet we seldom compare it with the pollution of the United States.

We are covered with modern electrical appliances yet we do not blame ourselves for over-extending our generating resources.

The Bermuda Festival and other groups regularly provide us with the finest culture available in the Western World yet there are those who constantly refer to Bermuda as a cultural desert.

Tiny Bermuda can direct dial its telephones to numbers around the world and we constantly joke about Telco.

Jets rush to London, the US, the West Indies and Canada yet British Airways is a national whipping boy.

We are free of snow and blazing sun yet we damn the weather.

Cruise passengers constantly keep us fat and rich yet we condemn the fact that the ships smoke a little in order to get here and back.

For 55,000 we have two television channels and five radio stations yet we curse both TV and radio.

We leave some of the finest stores in the world with bags spilling over with the best of international merchandise and bitch about the service we received.

Importers scour the world for the finest food, a selection few people ever see, yet we decry the menu.

We take for granted some of the greatest hotels in the world without admitting that only an infinitesimal percentage of the world's people know of such facilities much less get to use them.

We have a fine small general hospital and the world's best medical facilities are only a jet ride away, yet we complain of lack of care.

We condemn PWD yet our roads are well paved and anyone who has been in New York City in recent years will know what that means.

Our waters are clean and blue and our beaches are pink and not over-crowded yet all we seem to see is the tar from a polluted ocean beyond our control.

Our schools are good and getting better but we curse the teachers.

The list is enormous and this is but a sample.

Yes, all things are relative and there is no real room for complacency.

However it does not hurt sometimes to take stock of what we have, and what is good, and what we should be thankful for.

All this has been achieved by an isolated Island of 55,000 people. Seldom have so few had so much to be thankful for.

Bermuda is blessed and it might be well to give thanks for those blessings rather than complain because they are not greater, and greater and ...