The gesture starts with your hand on your heart as if you’re about to do the Pledge of Allegiance. And then you just bring the hand down and out in front of you.

It actually means ‘thank you from the bottom of my heart.’

Scott Truitt, of Seattle, Washington, says many Americans want to express their gratitude to members of our military, but most aren’t really sure how to proceed. He started the Gratitude Campaign in 2007, using a modified American Sign Language gesture for thank you to help him, and us, say thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

“I think there’s a lot of politics wrapped around the military and that can get confusing for a lot of people,” he said.

We hope his Gratitude Campaign will continue to spread across the country since its beginning in 2007. The idea is even if soldiers don’t know exactly what the gesture means, they’ll realize if it originates on the heart, its got to be good.

The idea that opposites attract doesn’t have to mean that the city mouse and the country mouse get married. But often times l find that l appreciate seeing good qualities, positive character traits, healthy emotional expressions, fine logical intelligence, and a real sense of humor in someone else, although to be honest l am still working on the challenge of refining myself in these worthy areas. You could even say that the qualities I would like to see improving in myself, I also like to see these same qualities in my friends. I consider myself mentored by all my friends, since I learn and grow whenever I have the privilege of spending time together.

So I like to read and maybe another friend is a movie buff. Or I am a native New Yorker but my dear neighbor is from Mississippi. Or I have a lot of kids and my best friend has “dog” and “cat” kids that she coddles and loves. (Hi, Bonnie!)

Maybe this was the scene that Jerry Miller, Founder of Farmers Only had in mind– an online dating service for people who know that… “You don’t have to be a farmer, but you do have to have good old-fashioned down to earth values.”