THANKSGIVING REMINISCE

 

It is the day after Thanksgiving and I am indulging in melancholy of Thanksgiving’s passed.  Bear with me.  It is an old aged thing but recall filled with love from the riches of my Thanksgiving repertoire.

There have been many wonderful holidays spent with family and close friends but for this memory back in time,  I am going to focus on some deeply personal glimpses.   

I remember Thanksgiving 1942 during the height of World War II.  My father was working at the Naval Ordinance Depot in Crane Indiana and it was just my brother and I with my mother.  Early in the day my brother had gone rabbit hunting and returned with two rabbits that would provide the foundation for our Thanksgiving dinner when my Father returned from work.  It was a rare day of sharing my Mother’s kind, loving and very special story telling persona.  It was one of the rare times in my life that I recall feeling as if I was sharing with my brother the true depth of our mother’s love for us. This is a memory for which I am deeply thankful.

I was 17 years old when I left home in early October 1950. I went to Crawfordsville, Indiana to attend a special trade school in pursuit of employment with a company that was then viable and successful, the Western Union Telegraph Company.  (Does that date me or not?) I would complete my training the week after Thanksgiving and have a week off between completion of my schooling and starting my first assignment with the company.   Distance, economics and travel connections prohibited my going home for the holiday and thus, it would be my first holiday away from my family.

I will never forget my happiness and surprise to see my sister and brother-in-law (Thelma and Oscar Shipmen) drive up to the house where I was staying.  They had driven from Shoals Indiana to Crawfordsville, Indiana, a distance of 100+ (In those days 100 miles round trip in one day was significant travel) for the express purpose of taking me out to Thanksgiving dinner and sharing the day with me.   My family’s traditional Thanksgiving celebration was sacrificed that I not be alone.  I am so truly thankful for my beloved sister whose love at that age I accepted as my due with little thought as to how lucky I was.  I am so very thankful for this special memories and blessings of my sister and my family.

On a lighter moment, Ken and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving with another couple who was also celebrating their first Thanksgiving together.  Both men were stationed at the Percy Jones Army Hospital in Battle Creek Michigan. The hospital served a traditional Thanksgiving feast to which staff and guests were invited.  Neither the other wife nor I could yet imagine ourselves preparing anything resembling a Thanksgiving dinner and thus our thoughtful husbands decided that the four of us would join the hospital sponsored feast.   After the meal, stomachs full and time on our hands, we decided to drive to Chicago and perhaps, take in a movie.  On the way the conversation somehow developed into a discussion regarding burlesque and by the time we reached Chicago, the two young husbands had decided to treat their wives to a theater named Minsky’s. From the discussion both husbands gleaned that their wives did not know anything about burlesque and certainly not that Minsky’s was a burlesque theater. Looking back I can only imagine the amused delight that our husbands anticipated when their naïve trusting wives found out the reality of the planned Thanksgiving Day celebration. 

To cut to the chase, both the other wife and I were good sports and since neither of us knew the other very well somewhat embarrassed but needless to say it was a Thanksgiving to remember.  It was my first and only visit to a burlesque and I suspect it was the same for my partner in surprise but it made for many good laughs in the almost 70 years since.  We remained life- long friends and though Ken’s buddy has passed away, we are still in touch with his wife. I am thankful for this wonderful memory from our youth and it brings a smile to my face to still be able to remember that we were young and reckless once.

I also remember Thanksgiving 1952 when Ken went deer hunting to Northern Michigan with friends and I spent Thanksgiving alone but without rancor.  I was scheduled to work and thus, Ken was tempted by the invitation to do something that he had never done, deer hunting.  I encouraged him to go and he had a wonderful memory. My Thanksgiving was subdued with work the highlight of my day but I am thankful for blessings that we had.

 I am thankful for our good fortune in the many wonderful memories that we have had in what has truly been a charmed life. There were years when our good fortune was fleeting but we knew we had much to be thankful for in spite of sparse conditions at the time.  I hope that all of your Thanksgivings are as happy as those I choose to remember today.  I felt the need to share but these few. But be assured there is a lifetime of memories awaiting recall.

 

FOURTH OF JULY REFLECTION

Today we celebrate the Declaration of Independence that our forefathers cared enough to suffer to achieve. Few of us can remotely identify with anything near the adversities that they endured to provide us the freedom to live the lifestyle that we are privileged to enjoy today. 

My family and that of my husband date back to the early colonies and the American Revolution.  This holiday is a reminder to us of our heritage and the legacy that our ancestors provided to us in the 200+ years since that Declaration of Independence.  Subsequent generations have defended the principles of those first Colonists, but none paid a higher price than those who fought in that cause or the subsequent Civil War to defend the principles of equal justice for all.  Two of my Great Grandfathers fought and were wounded in that war and they carried reminders of those wounds with them for the rest of their life.  I was raised to respect the sanctity of human life, respect my fellow citizens and above all, appreciate the values on which my country was founded and that my ancestors fought to preserve. My parents instilled in me pride for what had been given to me and respect for the values from which they sprung.

This year as in no other year in my 87 years I am apprehensive for my country and the traditions that I was taught to respect and value. I am appalled at the disrespect for our history, traditions and moral values that have been exhibited in the past weeks. How many of those who now attack the foundations of patriotism share the history of a forefather fighting in that great revolution under almost insurmountable odds or in the unfathomable conditions under which my Great Grandfathers and many other similarly dedicated men fought in the great Civil War?  I do not in any way discount the wrongs of slavery, but I would remind those who may not otherwise know, a rarely acknowledged fact.  There were many good Americans who voluntarily withstood incomprehensible conditions in order that slavery and the wrongs of a misguided group of our citizenry might be righted.  I find myself resentful that the price my Grandfathers paid in the cause of freedom should now be looked upon with contempt  without recognition of the price that was paid for them to now engage in the acts of despicable anarchy and hate that we are forced to endure.  I understand that we have witnessed many appalling acts of hate by people whose moral yardstick is challenged.  But what is to be accomplished when that hate is met by a hate of the same misguided acts of vindictiveness?  I abhor those who would disrespect and dishonor their fellow man.  Those people do not share my moral values and I do not share theirs, but neither do I share the moral values of those would strike back on the same revengeful premise.

I do not believe that those who do not respect others irrespective of race, color, creed or nationality are part of our American tradition.  This holiday celebrates our Declaration of Independence and for me a special tradition.  It is a celebration of who we are and not what those who would destroy our beliefs and traditions with hate and vindictive acts of anarchy would have us be.  I fear that their abuse of the freedoms that our forefathers fought so hard to provide us will destroy not only their freedoms, but yours and mine as well.  Let us all reach out, one unto another, in a new dedication to preserving that which we have rather than joining those who would destroy that which has been given us.  A first step might be to recognize that hate in any form must be acknowledged and eradicated and that it must begin with you and me.  That would be my wish for all my family and friends on this Fourth of July 2020.