Thanksgiving 2009

Psalm 136

My love affair with Thanksgiving takes me back across several decades of time. I was perhaps eight, my brother Bob seven, and we were being raised by our maternal grandparents on 100 acres of land in Ohio County, KY, land that contained mostly timber but with just enough cleared areas to eke out a garden, truck patches, and of course, Burley tobacco, at the time the area's only cash crop and mainstay for most families. (Well, there was one other "cash crop", but it had to be secretly cooked and sold and somehow the "revenuers" took a dim view of that form of commerce. We would never turn anyone in but we knew when neighbors bought sugar in 100 pound lots they weren't making candy!). We literally lived from one growing season to another, completely dependent in winter on the vegetables the women had canned, potatoes buried in the earth (surrounded by straw to protect from frostbite), and whatever wild game the men and boys could kill. In especially good years there would be a fattened hog to slaughter. We savored and tried to preserve all of the animal...save the squeal and hair. Hog-killing usually took place around Thanksgiving, ensuring the weather would be cold enough, in combination with massive amounts of salt, to preserve the meat, which was hung in "smokehouses." We heated the old un-insulated clapboard house with coal obtained from the nearby mines. Clothing and shoes, both of which would be patched--and re-patched--were either obtained from the local "General Store" in Olaton or ordered from Sears-Roebuck or Montgomery Ward. That is, except for shirts, dresses, and bonnets sewn from chicken-feed sacks, which were relished and traded by the womenfolk as though they were actual currency. Loretta got it right in Coal Miner's Daughter: "Complain? There warn't no need."

But then came Thanksgiving! In school we had studied the Pilgrims and Indians, turkeys, and tables laden with produce from a blessed growing season. Our teachers found enough brown, orange, black, red, and yellow craft paper for each child to make a turkey, print his/her name across the tail feathers, and prominently hang it on a wall. On the last day of school before Thanksgiving "recess", we got to take the turkey home!

Oh, one other thing: in the public school, and at home, there was never any question as to Who the Source of all our blessings was...God...and we thanked Him in both places!

It was not unusual for the first significant snowfall to hit those parts around Thanksgiving. (The winter of '58 brought an 18" snow that closed schools for 2 weeks...rabbits took refuge in barns and when forced outside sank in the drift, unable to run, providing unusally easy pickin's). I recall one such Thanksgiving day, under a leaden sky, after we had dined sumptuously, and the grownup men sat talking, (also chewing, spitting, smoking tobacco), relaxing, snoozing around the big coal stove, the women finally having their turn at the dining table, having patiently served the men and children (let's see that one fly today!), while the kids played excitedly outside (no tv, telephone, iPod, internet...we built log forts from old fence rails, climbed young hickory trees, grabbing the very tops, using our body weight to ride them to the ground, and sometimes had great corn-cob wars). On this particular Thanksgiving afternoon, suddenly every kid stopped what he/she was doing and looked heavenward: huge snowflakes had begun to ever so gently drift to the ground! Not even a "sugar high" could compare to the thrill this act of Mom Nature was now giving us! Within minutes the ground was white and we made footprints, and "tracked" one another in the snow.

But as the snow brought the kids excitement it also triggered alarm with those who had travelled from afar. Since the afternoon was wearing on and dark-thirty would come soon (around 4:30), the adults began collecting dishes and coats, calling kids, warming cars (those that had heaters). Soon it would be just Bob and me, still outside catching snowflakes on our tongues, toting coal for the night, milking/feeding the old cow, while the grandparents cleaned the kitchen. Once more, we would be alone, isolated from neighbors and family, but with Thanksgiving falling all around...darkness, the sound of snow sifting to the ground, and physical exhaustion from a day of "giving thanks to the Lord."

I pray your 2009 Thanksgiving will be blessed as never before!

julian