It is tempting at this time of the year to compose an “I am thankful for ... ” column. But I can’t. Not because I don’t have so very much for which to be thankful — I do — but because no one could ever top the efforts of the late Furman Bisher, sports editor of the Atlanta newspaper, and the finest writer to come down the pike. His annual Thanksgiving columns will never be surpassed, so I won’t try. I will simply say I am thankful to have known Furman Bisher. The last Thursday of November is officially Thanksgiving Day in the United States as so decreed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1941, signing a joint resolution of Congress back when our federal government actually functioned. Today, Congress can’t agree on the time of day, let alone what day of the month to celebrate Thanksgiving. Our modern Thanksgiving holiday was first declared by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 in hopes of bringing some unity between the Northern and Southern states, who were busy fighting an uncivil war. As we all know, that was a floperoo. Not only did it not unify us, we have stuck-in-the-past zealots on both sides who are still fighting it. Get over it. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, by the grateful survivors of the Mayflower voyage from England — our first illegal immigrants — and a group of Native Americans who taught the Pilgrims how to grow corn and, in hindsight, may wish now they had let the crowd float on back to Europe since they ended up taking over Massachusetts and acting like it had been theirs all the time.