This year
we’ll be doing something completely different for Thanksgiving, but before I
get to that, allow me a little trip down memory lane.
Thanksgiving
and Christmas are about getting together with the family to celebrate, so many
of my Thanksgiving memories have to do with just that. What’s interesting as I
think about it is that in some cases, the act of traveling to the Thanksgiving
gathering was more memorable than the day itself.
Take, for
instance, my freshman year in college, when I came home for Thanksgiving
feeling considerably more adult than I had a few weeks earlier, and quite a bit
more adult than I really was at the time. I don’t remember a thing about the
dinner or anything else that happened that weekend, but I have vivid memories
of taking a Peerless Stages bus over Highway 17 in the rain and flying home on
PSA from San Jose. The plane fare was $14.18, which might explain why PSA is no
longer in business. Neither is Peerless Stages.
Snow in Seattle
In 1986 we
were planning on leaving for my mother’s place in Glendale at noon the day
before Thanksgiving, but we were making an offer on the house we now live in,
and things heated up. Following a frenzy of negotiation, we finally got a deal
about 7 p.m. and hadn’t even begun packing. We drove down the next day, and the
only thing I remember after we left Santa Cruz is that we stopped at Denny’s in
Paso Robles for breakfast.
A year
before that, we went up to Seattle, where my sister Kathe had just given birth
to a son. (We were at the son’s wedding this summer, which shows how time
flies.) Seattle had an uncharacteristically heavy snowfall just before
Thanksgiving that year, and it was tough sledding for the whole weekend. That
was the year Kathe insisted on taking us for coffee at a new place that was
then the rage in Seattle. I think it was called Starbuck’s, or something like
that.
Then there
was the year Kathe and her family flew down Thanksgiving morning. No sooner had
we got back from the airport than we found that our oven had gone on the fritz.
The turkey ended up being hastily driven to Linda’s mother’s house, where it
was cooked and rushed back in time for dinner.
Changing Traditions
Our parents
are all gone now, and the rest of us are more scattered, so the Thanksgiving
tradition has changed in recent years. For some time now, it’s been just the
three of us — Linda, Nick and me — at home for that holiday. Nick, over the
years, developed a flair for seasoning and he’s been in charge of the mashed
potatoes, a job he’s performed with distinction.
This spring
Nick went into the Army. He’ll be home for Christmas, but not Thanksgiving, so
Linda and I are trying something different. Without a ravenous young man around
to help polish off the leftovers, we couldn’t really see preparing a large meal
that we’d never be able to finish. So we did some scouting around and made
arrangements to pick up turkey meat, stuffing and gravy from a local
establishment. We’ll make mashed potatoes and veg to finish the dinner.
The
potatoes won’t be as good as the ones Nick made, but they’ll remind us of him,
and they’ll also remind us to be thankful for our many blessings. And after
all, isn’t that what the holiday is all about?
