TERRE HAUTE —
You might think that the timing of this story is a bit off, being that it’s about Thanksgiving and all and we have now entered those frenzied and commercialized weeks that lead us up to and include Christmas. We’ll soon be up to our eyeballs in “Early Bird” sales and “Musak” and mall Santas, but I figured most readers wouldn’t mind reading a little bit more about our day of thanks, especially seeing that it is now, unfortunately, often overshadowed and overlooked by things more pecuniary.
Surely, most of us know that the day we all call “Thanksgiving” was first proclaimed by William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth Colony, after a particularly rough winter in 1621, although, like most historical events, even that is now in dispute. The Pilgrims had endured cold and deprivation that we can only imagine and had reaped a fine harvest that year. Only 53 of them to enjoy the feast that Bradford called for, even harder to imagine now in a day and age when we can turn a dial for extra heat, flip a switch for light and turn a tap for water.
The governor, “a person of a well-tempered spirit,” according to the great preacher, Cotton Mather, was only 31 years old when he issued his decree. But most folks don’t realize that he didn’t call for the same thing to happen in the next year, or even the next. The Pilgrims didn’t even call their day “Thanksgiving” at all, although that term was used for a celebrated day in 1623 after a providential rainfall.
Several presidents, including George Washington, set aside days as one-time Thanksgivings, but it wasn’t until 1863 that Abraham Lincoln, undoubtedly searching for something to help unite his splintered citizenry, called for a national day of thanks, and he put it in writing. In part, he said, “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”
I found the Pilgrims a rather humorless lot in grade school and junior high history, their “thees” and “thous” too stodgy and formal for my taste. But, in fact, the Pilgrims were a gutsy and creative bunch who knew what great risks they were talking on when about 110 of them first boarded the Mayflower on their journey to the New World; for that, we have to admire them.
I was obviously taught all about Bradford and the Pilgrims’ most fortunate partnership with Samoset and Squanto, their Native American friends. And I vaguely recall spending the days leading up to Thanksgiving in diligent labor at my desk, cutting and pasting together a turkey out of brown and red construction paper. The entire class’ turkeys would eventually adorn the walls outside our classroom door, waiting, of course, for the inevitable day when they’d face replacement by our crude snowmen and Christmas trees. My friends and I were a little intrigued by the Pilgrims’ blunderbusses and buckled shoes and apparent lack of interest in color, when in reality, at least two of those images are typical misconceptions.
My childhood Thanksgivings weren’t spent at a crude, open-air table eating corn meal and fish with a band of Wampanoags on hand, nor did we celebrate for three days, as the Pilgrims did (unless you count the turkey sandwiches we ate for a week afterward). Although we always spent most of Christmas Day at my Grandmother Blanche’s house just next door, we trekked the seven or eight miles over to my Grandmother Daisy’s place for Thanksgiving dinner.
My Grandfather Tommy — actually my step-grandpa — and my Grandma Daisy were an intriguing pair. Tommy always wore neatly pressed gray work clothes and a perfectly maintained fedora. He smoked Winstons and had a gold tooth and laughed easily, and we loved him for his quietness and simplicity, his impeccable, neatness and his appreciation for Perry Como and Patsy Cline records. My grandmother was a real study in psychology. She loved to wear house dresses and slippers, was psychotically clean and probably had about enough of the grandkids once they’d been in her house after 30 minutes or so. She was, however, one of the world’s great cooks, her table bejeweled with homemade pickles, juicy turkey and candied sweet potatoes.
My grandmother, with my mother’s able assistance, put on prodigious and memorable feasts. To this day, I have never tasted macaroni and cheese like hers; I have no idea what she did with it or to it that made it so unique, but whatever her recipe was, it went to the grave with her.
It was in my grandparents’ tiny home near Burnett that we watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in grainy black and white (my grandparents eventually owned a color television long before anyone else I knew), the huge Goofys and Donald Ducks yanking their tenders along in the breeze as Hugh Downs gave details. My grandmother’s clear glass coffee pot bubbled all day, and even a quick trip through her knotty pine-lined kitchen and its enticing aromas was a glorious preview of the meal to come.
Since we weren’t usually allowed in my grandparents’ bedroom, with the possible exception of putting our coats on her bed for the day, we spent most of our time in her living room, playing in the brick alcove near her spotlessly unused fireplace where firewood was supposed to be stored. Her bedroom was particularly off limits to me; it was there that I had once spent a memorable afternoon playing, that is after I had locked my grandmother and sister out of the house while they’d gone to the clothesline. I suppose we had argued about something.
I can still hear my grandmother vigorously rapping away on the rattling windows, telling me in a muffled voice through the glass that my grandpa would whip my 7-year-old backside unmercifully when he got home from work. I never had the nerve to tell her that when he took me outside to discipline me an hour or two later, that he let me ride on the back of his Rambler up their winding drive to get the evening newspaper, then drove me to a little country store in the tiny crossroads burg nearby to gab with a friend and drink Orange Crush. It remained forever our secret.
You know, I would hate to think that I am thankful for what I have on only one day out of the year, that I have so little in life that I can fit my gratitude for it into one brief space of time. If there’s anything the Pilgrims taught us, that the memories of my grandparents reinforce in me, it is that.
You can contact Mike Lunsford by email at hickory913@aol.com or by writing to him c/o The Tribune-Star, PO Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. Read more of Mike’s stories at http://tribstar.com/mike_lunsford, and visit his website at www.mikelunsford.com. He will be speaking at the Parke County Extension Dinner in Rockville on Tuesday , and will be signing books at Kadel’s Hallmark at North Plaza on Dec.11.
Mike Lunsford
The Off Season: Leftovers: Thoughts on Pilgrims, memories of family
- Mike Lunsford
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A walk in the woods
I went for a walk in the woods one day last week after work. It was a warm and green afternoon, and a fresh blue breeze blew in from the west like a new spring friend.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘Dowsers’ provide hope more than science
My grandfather was a man of God. Many times I saw him, his right hand held high in the air at his Wednesday night “prayer meeting,” praising the Lord before weeping at the altar on his knees. And yet, he was a “dowser,” a “diviner,” a “witcher” who, as a favor, would grab a forked sassafras stick and find water for some poor unfortunate whose well had gone dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: As of today, it’s unofficially spring
Despite the calendar telling us not to rush things, I think it is all right to go ahead and say spring is here. The Ides of March has passed, Easter is coming soon, and I have already been out in my yard with a rake, getting my boots muddy. It looks like spring to me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Twain’s Sawyer helps us yearn for ‘wilderness of childhood’
My cousin, Roger, stopped in one day last summer for a glass of tea and a little conversation. Rog has lived an hour’s drive away for years and now, and besides summer reunions, I don’t see him nearly often enough. He’s a good man who has raised a good family, and he owns a healthy sense of appreciation for not only the life he has now, but also the lives we had years ago as kids.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Cheerful green of wheat fights winter blahs
There is a light drizzle of freezing rain tapping at the door of my cabin today. It is little more than a week before the words I am writing are due to appear on your breakfast table or work desk with your morning coffee and scrambled eggs. But I write when I can, and today, despite a full schedule of televised football games, and the stacks of ungraded papers in my briefcase, and a good book lying open on my nightstand, I am clacking away on a keyboard to the whir of a heater and the steady drip of my gutters.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On the simple joys of watching it snow ...
It began to snow about 20 minutes ago, as I write this, light, wind-driven flakes that fall silently into my woods as I watch from a window.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On this day above all, ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’
More than a year after his wife’s death, the great American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote in his diary on Christmas Day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Remembering a Lefty Frizzell-kind of Christmas ...
My brother and sister and I sat around a Thanksgiving dinner table a month ago, shifting in our seats just enough to make our yet-to-be digested turkey sit a little more easily, and, as we often do when we get together, we reminisced about our childhoods for a while.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The wonders of wading in ‘The Iridescence of a Shallow Stream’
I have no idea how many times I have written a story that begins with the wistful phrase, “When I was a boy. ...”
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Little man who came to dinner changes feel of household
My 7-year-old nephew, Carson, came to visit us last week. That in itself isn’t earth-shattering news, for he often drops by with one of his parents or the other, the last time dressed as a ghoul for Halloween. But for a couple like Joanie and me, whose youngest child is now nearly two decades past Carson’s age, having a little guy like him in the house, even for a few hours, takes a bit of adjusting.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Reflections: a bit of red glass and our daily thanksgivings
I sat in the half-light of my old desk lamp a few nights ago, a chilly wind blowing in from the northwest that made me appreciative of my long-sleeved shirt and purring heater.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Growing up — and ‘old’ — with many mouths to feed
At our family reunion last summer, I asked my brother if I could borrow a pair of photo albums he had put together. Over the past couple of years, I have committed quite a few of our family’s old yellowing snapshots to newly cropped and digitalized lives, and I wanted to do the same with some of the pictures John has collected for himself.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Violets in October – a pleasant surprise
I guess I don’t pay much attention to the weather forecasts these days because it surprised me a bit when our furnace kicked on a few nights ago.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A library is a good thing — even a little, homegrown one
I grew up with libraries, and I can’t imagine there ever being a time when I won’t want to wander one exploring it like some bookworm-Balboa, finding an author or title that I never really knew existed before. Creating those “Eureka” moments seems to be a dying interest now that so many of us download and digest books electronically without ever really considering that there just might be some hidden gem we’d have liked even more had we simply stumbled upon it on a shelf by accident. I think those moments of discovery are not unlike kicking up lost treasure a mile from where X marks the spot.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The ‘soothsayer’ who came to dinner
I’ve had a good time opening my mail these past few weeks. Sure, I still received the usual junk about lower credit card rates and satellite television packages, but the genuine letters made me smile; most were about a story I wrote in late August.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The agony of de‘feet’ has this writer on his heels
I don’t know if I can electrocute myself by using a computer and soaking my feet in a pan of warm water at the same time, but I am contemplating taking the risk. My feet, particularly the right foot, have staged a 10-digit rebellion over the past few months. After a half-century of commendable service, my pods are screaming to be taken in for repairs, a big inconvenience for a guy who works on his feet all day and whose “sole” form of serious exercise is putting one foot in front of another walking the local roadways.
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Mike Lunsford: Summer’s hidden beauty worth the wait
The great naturalist John Burroughs once said that nature teaches more than she preaches. I can’t recall a summer where that rings true more than this one, for that old sun of ours truly taught us a thing or two these past three months.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time to redefine the concept of ‘assisted living’
Although it has been nearly two months now, I can’t forget the few afternoon hours I spent on a hot June day this summer at a local “assisted living” facility in town. I had been asked to speak to a group of men there about Father’s Day, but for most part, the wonderful old guys who came to listen certainly made my day more memorable than I did theirs.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Observations on smooth stones and blue-green water…
It was raining when I began to write this. Although no one could rightfully call what we got this afternoon a “downpour,” it was nice to have my windows open to hear the steady drops of a passing shower tapping on my dry-as-dust deck and hard-as-concrete yard.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: This summer has us recalling the heat of ’36
It was “only” 99 degrees one afternoon last week when I decided to work on a backyard deck. With a jack and a drill and a little more sweat than I wanted to invest in the project, I went about the business of leveling its sags and dips a bit. The sun pounded down on my head and shoulders like a thug’s blackjack, but as I packed my tools and drank a glass of cool water under a big maple tree a few hours later, I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I’ve been these past few dusty and drought-stricken weeks. I have worked under this summer’s heat lamp for only a few hours at a time, but God help the roofers and utility linesmen and firemen, and so many others, who are out in it day after long hot day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: We had no better friend than Andy Taylor
The world is a sadder place now that Andy Griffith has died, but at least we still have Andy Taylor.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Wading deeper into the subject of Blue Herons
Like a relative who has worn out his welcome, the hot, parched weather of this young summer has already overstayed its visit with us, so my wife and I have found ourselves walking our road later in the evenings to keep our feet cool and our backs dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Thanking two dads whose gifts have never stopped coming…
It is nearly a week until Father’s Day, but I have had my dad, and my father-in-law — a second dad to me — on my mind today. I wrote about both men just a few weeks ago, but I have set my mind to write about them again anyway. I don’t want this story to be sad; they both loved to laugh and wouldn’t want that. No, I just wanted to tell them hello, and to thank them again for what they still do for me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Raising a flag for my father, veteran or not
My daughter, Ellen, and I stood at my parents’ graves on Mother’s Day a few weeks back and talked about how it couldn’t possibly have been so long since we lost them. My dad, for instance, has been gone for 16 years, and that is nearly unimaginable
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Time to become one of the boys of summer again …
Besides writing for a living, I teach school, and I’m not ashamed to tell people that I still love my classroom. I’ve been a teacher for 33 years, all of them in the same school district, and virtually all of them in the same building. But I also have to tell you that if the next few weeks don’t slide by pretty quickly, I may just let loose of the last thread of sanity from which I have been dangling for a while now. There are a lot of teachers out there who feel the same way.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time for us to get the real lowdown on dirt…
I have had my hands in the soil as of late. Two Fridays ago, I planted a viburnum bush, three chrysanthemums and a yellow poplar, not because it happened to be Earth Day, but because it was sunny and warm, and I had the whole afternoon to myself. The dirt I scraped out of and back into the shallow holes I dug near a backyard picket fence smelled good, and when dampened with a few sprinkles of water, it soon found its way into the deep wrinkles of my knuckles and under my fingernails. For the most part, I have nothing but good things to say about dirt.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Make big money: Raise worms at home for fun and profit…
When I think about all of the crazy things my brother and sister and I did just to make a few dollars when we were kids, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for teens this summer as they try to find jobs in what is supposed to be a very tight market. Money, to say the least, was a rare commodity when we were growing up, but you have to at least give us credit for trying.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…’
Had white lace curtains been hanging in the west window of my cabin, I would have had a perfect Wyeth painting to watch last Thursday. A gentle breeze was wafting through my screens, and the sunlight of a warm late March day was fractured by the window sill as it poured onto my legs and feet. I could catch the scent of lilacs as it was carried in by that wind, and it and the subtle melody of the chimes that hang just outside made me as lazy as an old cat.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A report from the country as a new season brings sense of renewal
Regardless of what the calendar may yet say, spring has happened. It couldn’t have come too soon, and it wasn’t just last week and its windy 70s that have convinced me. I have been keeping a journal of sorts in my head for a fortnight now, stashing away reports of birds and buds and sounds in the crammed cabinets of my mind, all in a file marked, “The New Season.”
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Feeding time at the homestead draws a host of new guests
I stepped outside into the warmth of an unusually mild early March morning last week to do what I always do just before I grab my briefcase and book bag and lunch bag and head off to work. It’s nearly always dark when I leave, even as the sun gets up earlier and earlier in the late winter, so I often go about the business of feeding our cats with porch lights on and a flashlight in hand.
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