Thanksgiving 2009

by vernsanders on November 26, 2009

Thanksgiving is an unusual day for me…with traditions, memories, and the thing that happened one year, the story of which that everybody who was there has promised to tell at my funeral…

One of my traditions is reading Jon Carroll’s annual Thanksgiving column (there are now two, actually…here’s the current one – which has a link to the “traditional” one…) just as it was to read Herb Caen’s while he was alive. There is something about good writing that can express emotions and common experiences in a way that helps you say “yes…that’s right.”

On the memories side, there is, first and foremost, the childhood gathering of the Moon clan at my maternal grandparents’ house. The menu was always the same, and grandpa Moon always served everyone’s plates…and you ate what you got, even if it was actually supposed to be Uncle Donald’s plate, but grandpa had counted wrong as the plates got passed all the way around the table…

But then there is the tradition and memory of celebrating Thanksgiving on or about Columbus day…shaped by all of the Canadian Thanksgivings I enjoyed while living there as a university professor. Different, yet the same…in that way that all humans are different, yet the same…

When you clear everything else away, I think that Thanksgiving is about the people who have come in and out of your life, and with whom you have shared a moment…extended or shortened as it might be. Thanksgiving is a holiday that hasn’t yet, it seems, been corrupted by national agenda, or Hallmark. Yes, those influences are snapping at the edges, but as much as we might be thankful for things, and concepts, and freedoms…I think Thanksgiving is still a holiday about people.

And the people in my life I am most grateful for right now are Judi, and Lura, and Peter, and Alana, and Jack, and Beverly and Tom, and Victor and Pan, and Rob, and Patty and Marc, and David and Inge, and Tina and Mike, and Doug, and Dot, and Steve, and Dave, and Cort and Annette, and Bob and Esther, and Doug, and Hugh, and Steve, and Rich and Joy, and Leonard and Laurie, and Scott, and Scott, and Scott (and yes that’s 3 people), and John, and John and Nita, and Kevin, and Charlie, and Robert, and all the TPC people (you know who you are), and all the Les Girles and their men, and…well…the Canadian folks are way too numerous to mention…(and for whom this is a workday…sorry about that…), and those teachers and professors that helped me grow into what I turned out to be, in spite of their best efforts…and all those people who I should be including but haven’t…

and then my parents, and Betty & Lloyd, my grandparents, and Graydon…all gone long before the appropriate time…who had such a long lasting impact that not a day goes by that I don’t miss one or more of them…

And so, on this peacefully quiet day in the woods near Lake Tahoe, thank you all…whereever you are, and whomever you are with…I’m thinking about you and what you’ve meant to me…I hope your Thanksgiving is the best ever.

Blessings…

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