Holidays like Thanksgiving can be reduced as I noted this morning to a couple of words like, “Turkey, Family & Football”. I wishit were that simple. Most people do not live “model” lives with every eye dotted and every T shirt worn in the same way. That reminds me. As soon as the holiday is over and everybody is back to work I have a doctor’s appointment. Even doctors have holidays although death does not. The emergency rooms are filled with grieving relatives who crowd near the deceased who tried to make it home by breaking laws of nature and man.
Thanksgiving is supposed to be a reenactment of the halcyon days when Pilgrims put aside their muskets. Then owners of the land where a party was held – Native Americans or Indians as Columbus pronounced them – sat down to a communal feast of locally grown natural produce. There wasn’t much in the way of fertilizer except for the fish accompanying each grain of corn planted by Squanto - if my memory serves.
Our reenactment as everybody knows is a time of gorging on prescribed menus that authenticate the original feast. I have served to supply food for this holiday when homeless came to get a “special” once a year feast at the soup kitchen where I served up the items scrounged from food markets and good people who wanted to share. The reenactment should not include the football game but that has to be included for red-blooded Americans cannot do without bloody contests of strength. Thank goodness for our substitution of this kind of athletic test of prowess instead of gladiators fighting to death to please the crowds who were given bread along with a “circus”.
We miss our family at this time. We have missed our family most other times that are special when families get together. This was our choice and unfortunately we are not like the ones who can board planes, trains, cars and who can hoof it over to Grandma’s. But our thoughts are with our children and grandchildren and we have often been invited to friends to share with THEIR families the bounty this harvest time of the year brings to groaning boards. We are left with a feeling that there was just too much to eat and, perhaps, too much bringing together the people who would not ordinarily share a meal with each other.
Despite my grouchy estimation of this estimable “holiday”, I do wish all a very happy Thanksgiving and – watch out! The crowds using this time to buy presents for Christmas are NOT especially filled with kindness toward their fellow shoppers.