The Best Thanksgiving in the Toughest Times
A
Thanksgiving Thought from Senator Don Gaet
Growing up in a farming community meant that family finances were
hostage to weather and markets – both being unpredictable,
uncontrollable and mercurial forces. By Thanksgiving
each year we knew how they had treated us.
The year I was nine was our year to host my mother’s two sisters and
their families for Thanksgiving dinner. We weren’t looking
forward to it. It had been a bad year. Even a child can
sense when things are bad. My mother wore pursed lips and
forced smiles and smoked too much. My father, who nearly
always left before daybreak for his two jobs and many civic
obligations, came home weary and worried at night. From my
room in the basement I could hear my parents, who never argued,
argue about money. My parents’ anniversary, which had always
meant going out to dinner at a fancy place 60 miles away, was
reduced to a bouquet of gladiolas picked from our garden and a
supper of bacon and eggs at the kitchen table.
Long distance phone calls cost what my mother called “big money” and
therefore were justified only when news was excessively good or bad.
Two days before Thanksgiving, I overhead my mom take a call from our
soon-to-show-up relatives from the other side of the state. I
figured somebody died.
Instead was the request/announcement that the two carloads of
expected family would be supplemented by five additional diners at
our holiday table, relatives of relatives I didn’t remember we had.
“They’re coming because they have even less than we do and nowhere
to go,” mom said apologetically about her shirt-tail relatives.
“I’m sorry.”
My dad held her hand for a moment and then said simply, “We will
have our Thanksgiving and it will be a good one.”
That day when the cars pulled up at our place my father cut the
youngsters out of the herd and led us on a four mile hike through
the coulees and woods. The wind was cold as we crunched
through early snow. My father pointed out the animal tracks
and had us take cover to watch what must have been the last of the
year’s Canadian geese feed on corn stubble. He poured out lore
about the land we tramped. I remember how ebullient he was and
how he made each of us children feel good, especially the ones from
the family in the most difficult straits.
I had laid a fire in the fireplace so our gang of explorers returned
to a blaze of birch logs and cups of hot chocolate. A massive
turkey had materialized, stuffed with what seemed like gallons of
rich, fruity dressing according to a sacred family recipe.
Bowls of mashed potatoes, mom’s rhubarb and pumpkin pies and baked
apples seeping brandy and brown sugar filled the side tables.
Dad ground up cranberries and orange peels to make the relish.
Pitchers of milk cooled in the Kelvinator. Coffee bubbled in
the Perkolater.
The welcome couldn’t have been warmer. Any awkwardness soon
melted with the butter on the squash. Old Uncle Harold said
the prayer and we ate like lords and laughed through all the new
stories and the ones we knew. The “extra” relatives said they
hadn’t had a meal like that in months. And it was quite
literally true.
How all this could happen became evident when I saw the empty slot
in the gun case. My father had taken his 30 caliber rifle,
inherited from his father, to the man at Buck’s Sport Shop who had
always wanted it. He sold his gun to feed his wife’s extended
family for Thanksgiving.
After the last dish had been washed and dried and put away, mom and
dad and I sat in the living room by the fire. My parents
had insisted on packing the massive leftovers for her relatives to
take with them. All that remained for us were a couple pieces
of pumpkin pie onto which my father ladled the last of the cranberry
relish.
My parents sat close to each other and sipped their coffee.
I hadn’t seen them so happy in a long time and it was a long time
before I saw them that happy again.
Later things got better and Dad bought another gun. Seven
years afterwards, following my father’s funeral, the man from Buck’s
Sport Shop came by our house with the 30 caliber rifle. He
said he had tried to give it back to my dad several times but could
never get him to take it, even as a gift.
He told me what my father had said: “Selling you that rifle
was the best deal I ever made.”
And that was the best Thanksgiving I ever had in my parents’ home.
May God bless you and your family this Thanksgiving as we pray and
work for better times.
Respectfully,
Don Gaetz