I am writing this column, as usual, on Wednesday. But this is just not any Wednesday. The Superdome, the Smoothie King Center, and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans are swathed in blue light, and people all across that city are celebrating “Geaux Blue NOLA Day” by wearing blue and decorating their houses in support of the police.

I believe that anybody who would put his or her life on the line to help others deserves at least some acknowledgement. So I think we should also do it here, or just join New Orleans on “Geaux Blue Day.”

I have had quite a few family members across the generations and across the country, who have answered the call to protect and serve, and I know all of their hearts were in the right place.

It only makes sense that anybody who would take on the “bad guys” in the public’s defense would be like that, too. So let’s hear it for the Bogalusa Police Department and the Washington Parish Sheriff’s Office. Those officers and deputies do protect us in particular, and I suspect that it’s not easy.

While I am at it, I think their spouses deserve recognition as well. It must be difficult to never know whether or not you will see your husband or wife when the shift is done.

All first responders: police, firefighters, ambulance drivers, emergency medical technicians, and doctors and nurses, deserve our thanks. And I want to be among the first to say, “Thank you all!”

I thank you for your efforts and your sacrifice. I thank you for doing what you do to make us all safer. I thank you for just being there, so that the rest of us can relax.

And while I’m doling out the praise, I want to thank teachers, who we trust to get our children, not only educated as far as spelling, math and science are concerned, but who we entrust with their very outlook in this life, via the great deal of time they spend with our children.

I would also like to thank the librarians, artists and musicians, spiritual writers and leaders, and creative people of every stripe or splotch.

I recognize that it takes everybody to make this world go round. Thank you all!

Marcelle Hanemann is a reporter for The Daily News. You can email her at marcelle.hanemann@bogalusadailynews.com or call her at 985-732-2565, ext. 301.