It seems something of a dilemma. We have several days yet before we commence out travels -plenty of time to get everything organized -but I am having the constant feeling that I will forget something. True, I have left several chores to the very last minute, but what fun is leaving without that last minute panic. The summer lawn and garden equipment is still waiting to be put to rest in the barn, Loki needs a bath (he has found a lot of interesting things to roll in this past week, including a porcupine that was too slow to get out of the way of a corn picker), I need a haircut and there is a lot of planned packing to do. And that’s only the things I can remember right now. Every time I sit down, Spirits of Things Undone swirl around my head to disturb my tranquility.
This week as a substitute for what has become our traditional Thanksgiving trip to Laura’s house for dinner and a visit, we opted to stay home and help prepare food for Zion Lutheran Church’s holiday dinner. We peeled potatoes on Wednesday and helped with serving turkey and fixins’ on Thursday. We also ate our dinner there with a hundred other gray-hairs. It was fine, but nothing like having the house permeated with the smells of roasting turkey and baking pumpkin pie.
Our worst Thanksgiving was in 1974. We had just moved to Canada that summer and had halfheartedly celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October. When the real Thanksgiving rolled around, I was in Morden, Manitoba, meeting with some angry farmers about the provinces plans to get into the cattle breeding business. The best I could do was order a hot turkey sandwich with a side of mashed potatoes. It would have been tolerable, but it was served with a beef-based gravy. At home, Lolly managed an even less festive repast. She and the kids went to McDonald’s. In subsequent years we ignored the fact that the 4th Thursday of November was a work/school day and did our Thanksgiving, regardless.
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