If you’re feeling a little depressed because you can’t think of much to be thankful for on Thanksgiving, all you have to do to cheer up is peruse the pages of the Whidbey News-Times over the past year. Since you’ve still got a turkey to cook and pumpkin pie to bake, we’ve done the looking for you and found 66 reasons to be thankful tomorrow. There are many more, but we have space limitations.

1. Oak Harbor will have one less shopping mall, thanks to new noise zoning to protect the Navy.

2. When Whidbey Island has a giant storm, hardly anyone gets hurt or loses their home.

3. We now have air service between Whidbey Island and Seattle.

4. Boozers can still whoop it up on the Washington State Ferries.

5. A lot of unemployed bankers found jobs when Peoples Bank came to town.

6. The older islanders get, the less crime we have, at least until a gang of senior delinquents gets organized.

7. Emergency Services will remain top-notch, thanks to voters who passed the EMS levy.

8. Islanders always remember Help House and other local charities during the holidays.

9. You can still hunt deer among hikers, pet walkers and bird watchers on county property.

10. You can now buy license plates to benefit Admiralty Head Lighthouse.

11. The San de Fuca school still stands.

12. Rosie the lonely skeletal whale got some company when Rudy the skeletal porpoise joined her at the Coupeville Wharf.

13. Islanders continue to have babies, including Ryalyn Rook, the first baby of 2006.

14. A community effort saved the meals program at Oak Harbor Senior Center.

15. The Whidbey Camano Land Trust and others saved more land at Crockett Lake, South Whidbey State Park and elsewhere.

16. Oak Harbor decided to build a road and pave the way for a new brew and burger joint.

17. Au Sable continues to nurture Whidbey Island’s last prairie land.

18. Islanders are lucky. Two Oak Harbor women won a $680,000 lottery prize, and a Coupeville family won $7 million. It’s only a matter of time for the rest of us.

19. We have emergency helicopter service to Harborview, which saves many lives every year.

20. A Prowler crew of four walked away when their Whidbey plane crashed in Oregon.

21. Many military heroes came home from the war to loving families in Oak Harbor.

22. The Class of 2008 keeps getting more help to pass that darned WASL.

23. West Nile got one of our birds, but the bird flu has missed us entirely.

24. The Whidbey Island Marathon is becoming one of the biggest island attractions for outsiders.

25. Island juveniles can finally be detained, thanks to the new Juvenile Detention Facility.

26. NAS Whidbey is the best Navy base in the world, winning the Commander in Chief’s annual award.

27. People are starting to take pride in saving old Oak Harbor houses.

28. Firefighters kept the old Oak Harbor theater from burning to the ground.

29. A new Coupeville High School is under construction.

30. A new Oak Harbor High School stadium is going out to bid soon.

31. Architects are working on the revamped Oak Harbor High School.

32. Islanders learned local politics can be real entertaining, thanks to Greg Banks and Steve Selby.

33. Politics aside, the Greenbank Farm keeps getting better.

34. Gas prices are down from over $3 a gallon in May.

35. Two guys saved a baby blown off the marina dock.

36. Charlie Sneatlum returned to Coupeville for the first time in 75 years for the Water Festival.

37. The high school bond election got a whopping 65 percent support.

38. Whidbey Island still honors its veterans on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

39. A lot of Navy families got new housing during the year.

40. Relay for Life is still going strong for cancer survivors.

41. A developer sees a downtown renaissance (it could happen).

42. We’ve had 40 years to enjoy Whidbey Playhouse productions.

43. South of Oak Harbor still looks pretty rural.

44. We have a great new playground at Fort Nugent Park thanks to hundreds of volunteers.

45. Island summers are pretty cool.

46. Downtown has a fine new restaurant, and building, in Frasers.

47. The overlooked A-6 Intruder at City Beach Park will become a refurbished “plane on a stick” outside the Navy base.

48. Oak Harbor’s biggest political protest of the year featured a woman in a yellow bikini and three guys.

49. A hunger striker against the war stopped before she died.

50. A new environmentalism pervades Oak Harbor, making it tougher to develop rampantly.

51. The island’s elected leaders are all well intentioned.

52. After years of work, patrol squadron veterans got their memorial.

53. Oak Harbor still ceremonially remembers 9/11.

54. Everybody supports the troops.

55. We can never decide what’s best, east side sunrises or west side sunsets.

56. Killer spinach didn’t do much damage here.

57. The Growler is coming, the Growler is coming.

58. Oak Harbor produced an outstanding castaway for Survivor.

59. Kaitlin lived long enough to inspire us all, and teach us that our problems aren’t so bad.

60. WEAN always has Island County to kick around.

61. You can’t get away with signing your daughter’s ballot in Island County.

62. The Oak Harbor Planning Commission is starting to see the value of open space.

63. This is the golden age for Wildcat football.

64. Businesses are making money in Island County.

65. In Oak Harbor, people unite for Garry oaks.

66. In Oak Harbor and Coupeville, nobody needs to be lonely or hungry on Thanksgiving Day.