SPECIAL PEOPLE DESERVE THANKS.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

There will come a time today when the whole family gathers in the living room to talk and someone - an aunt, uncle, cousin, whoever - will complain that there's never any good news in the newspaper.

When it happens, do me a favor. Show them this column.

Remind them about the McNamara girls, the Reel Cowboys, the Mother Teresa of Ventura Boulevard, the McWidows, the Oldtimers Club at Habitat for Humanity, and all the other wonderful people and groups we've met this year.

In 15 years of writing columns for the Daily News, I can't remember a better year for good stories - the kind that touch the heart and stir something deep inside all of us.

Stories, like Jack Nicholson said in the movie ``As Good as It Gets,'' that make you want to be a better person.

So, on this day when we gather with our families to give thanks and stuff our faces, take a second with me to say thank you to some of the special people living in our neighborhoods who have stepped out of the shadows to bring us some very good news this year.

To the Pawley family, Dale and Ila, in Arleta, who adopted a drug-addicted, abandoned baby of African-American heritage 16 years ago - a child who was supposed to be mentally scarred and doomed to failure.

The Pawleys didn't see it that way. They had other plans for Dale Daniel - D.D., as his parents and friends call him. Great plans.

Some of them came to fruition this year. D.D. graduated from Osborne Christian School this year. Valedictorian of his class with a 3.97 grade-point average. On his way to college.

Thanks to the McNamara girls of Van Nuys - mother Debbie and daughters Amy, Haley and Kelly - willing to go into hock to save the life of a stray puppy left for dead by a hit-and-run driver on their block.

We all saw something in this family that made us want to reach into our own pockets to help them pay for the $4,000 in hospital bills for the puppy, Maya, who had to have one leg amputated.

The puppy's fine today. Maya gets pampered so much by Debbie's daughters, she doesn't even know she's missing a leg, Debbie says.

Thanks to Joe Cranston and all the other Reel Cowboys at Big Jim's Restaurant in Sun Valley for teaching some battered kids what real men are like. They don't hit kids.

The children, hiding out in shelters with their moms, would cringe any time an adult male got near them. Not anymore. These big, strong, ex-movie-cowboy extras got down on their hands and knees to give these kids piggyback rides and hold them close. Teach them that all men are not the kind of creeps who hit children.

Thanks to Inez Burke, the Mother Teresa of Ventura Boulevard. For the past 21 years, Inez, now 79, has loaded up her old station wagon with See's candies and Tupperware bought at discount and hawked them to women getting their hair done in beauty shops along the boulevard.

Hawked them solely for cancer research - for the children at the City of Hope battling cancer, and for a cure to the breast cancer attacking women.

By herself, she has easily raised tens of thousands of dollars for cancer research and patient care.

Thanks to Al Horton and all the guys at the Oldtimers Club who thought there had to be more to retirement than golf and gardening. There was - a lot more.

Four days a week, the guys get together and volunteer with Habitat for Humanity to build affordable housing for low-income families. Nothing wrong with birdies and flowers, the guys say, but they don't hold a candle to seeing a young woman with a couple of kids excitedly look around a house they never thought they'd find themselves living in.

Thanks to 12-year-old Travis Martin and his mom, Lisa, of Simi Valley for touching a nerve in this city. Too often the bullies get away with the prizes and the victims just fade into the shadows. Not this time.

When some jerk stole the foul ball Travis caught at a Dodgers game, a lot of people got mad and wanted to make it right for the kid, and they did. The Dodgers helped by treating Travis and his family to a game, plus giving him autographed souvenirs - a nice lesson that the jerks out there don't always win.

Thanks to Rafael Gomez Gonzales for showing us age is no obstacle if you want something badly enough. Gonzales badly wanted to become a U.S. citizen. At 100, he passed the test this year and is now an American.

Thanks to the McWidows at McDonald's in Studio City for showing us how loneliness is no match for laughter and friendship, and to Lisa Gelb, who donated one of her kidneys to her father, Rickey, for showing us sickness is no match for love.

Thanks to Henry and Janet Rosmarin, Laurie Eisenberg, Gilbert and Lupe Gonzales, Jacqueline Moore, Cassandra Sanders and so many other people for sharing their poignant, warm stories with us this year.

No good news in the newspaper? Nah.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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PHOTO (Color) From left, the McNamaras - Amy, mom Debbie, Haley and Kelly - of Van Nuys dug deep to help pay the medical bills for Maya, a stray puppy injured by a hit-and-run driver.

Myung J. Chun/Daily News