GHOSTS OF THANKSGIVINGS PAST

“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,” (Philippians 1:3)

It’s Thanksgiving Day morning. It’s around 7 a.m. (NOT “4”...that posting time at the bottom is in Pacific time!). It’s kind of damp and dank outside; and I find myself thinking about ghosts of Thanksgivings past.

The first Thanksgiving I remember is from when our family lived at 21 Alpine Street in Boston’s Roxbury section. We moved to Canton in December of 1958, so that memory may be of 1958’s Thanksgiving. I remember my parents cooking a turkey in a portable G.E. roaster oven. (Those G.E. roaster ovens were “state of the art” in 1958 - my grandmother had one, too!) I remember my parents explaining that it was a holiday, kind of a big deal, etc. I didn’t quite understand what was going on, but I did sense this thing of cooking a big turkey dinner and a day off in the middle of the week WAS a big deal.

My father wasn’t much for cooking, but every Thanksgiving and most Christmases, he made the French Canadian meat stuffing for the turkey. It was his mother’s recipe. Even as a little kid, I always liked the stuffing better than the turkey! Incidentally, I’m one of the ten percent of turkey eaters who prefer the DARK meat. I will never understand why people prefer the white meat. Usually the white meat tastes like a piece of white card stock with gravy on it! The dark meat is where all the flavor is, and it’s usually much juicier.

Thanksgiving Day of 1963 was kind of a somber one for everybody, coming just four days after JFK’s funeral. I remember hearing on the radio how the Kennedy family was spending Thanksgiving that year, etc. Thanksgiving Day of 1973 fell on November 22, the ten year anniversary date of JFK’s assassination. November 22, 1973 was a snowy day. I think we had two inches of snow. I went to the Canton High game that morning- a home game. I remember walking there in the snow.

Speaking of games, I was in the Canton High band in school. No, I didn’t play football- are you kidding?! I probably would have been killed! Actually, a bunch of us started in the high school band in the 7th Grade because the band was so short of members at that time. So, for six school years, I got to go to all the Canton High football home and away games for free. I remember marching on the field on some Thanksgiving Days when it was SO cold you couldn’t even feel your feet!

In 1972, my mother was in the hospital on Thanksgiving Day recovering from surgery. My father insisted on cooking the WHOLE turkey dinner for just our immediate family. Although he always made the stuffing, and although he loved to grille meat in the summer, he was very macho and not the kitchen type at all. I will never forget my father wearing one of my mother’s full and slightly feminine looking aprons and taking the turkey out of the oven. My brother, sister, and I were fighting SO hard not to burst out laughing!

We had another somber Thanksgiving Day in 1983. My brother Eddie had died that summer. My parents were a mess. Mary Ann and I had them over to our apartment, along with Kent and Jackie Binley who had lost their 20-year-old son in 1980. OUR own son was just 3-months-old at the time. I remember Jackie Binley chain smoking that day (as she always did). I DO think it was therapeutic for my parents to be with them.

I was in Bible College in Missouri for two Thanksgivings. I don’t remember the first. Maybe I just ate the Thanksgiving dinner they prepared on campus for the kids who were so uncool they didn’t have any other place to go! Well, I was MUCH cooler the 2nd time around! A bunch of us were invited over to Tom Colston’s house. He was our College Age Class teacher at Bethel Assembly of God. Tom was married and had one kid, a son. No kidding- if you know the cartoon show “King of the Hill”, THEY were the original “King of the Hill” family. Tom Colston TALKED like Hank Hill! His wife was loud and outspoken and a character like Peggy Hill, AND their son Micah was very much like Bobby Hill except that Micah had dark hair. (Tom didn’t sell propane, but he DID drive a big fuel rig!)

This year, we’re going over to Mary Ann’s sister Lynn’s in Dedham for the Thanksgiving meal. I think it’s the first time since we’ve been married that we haven’t done Thanksgiving dinner at home. Our daughter Amy and son-in-law David are in town from Missouri for the holiday, so that’s very exciting. We’ll be going to the Marian High game this morning. (I’m glad it’s a home game here in Framingham- their away games for Thanksgiving are at Joe Moakley stadium in South Boston.)

I hope you haven’t all fallen asleep, but those are some of my Thanksgiving memories! Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!