Giving More Than Thanks at Thanksgiving
Back before Global Warming became Global Climate Change and the South End became a tropical paradise, we sometimes had early winters. Real ones. The kind with windstorms and snowstorms. Days without power! Without TV!! Without the internet!!! I know what you’re thinking and yes, suicide rates went ballistic. Those were primitive times and only the tough survived. And the terminally dumb. If nothing else, it kept the population down. WAY down.
Many a Thanksgiving was spent in the cold and dark. Us Old Timers cooked our feasts on the woodstove and dined by candlelight. I know what you’re thinking and yes, pregnancy rates skyrocketed.
There was one particular Thanksgiving we had a major blizzard the day before, over a foot of snow, traffic in Seattle and Gomorrah stopped cold and the interstate became an icy parking lot. Stanwoodopolis seemed as remote as the North Pole to those of us who hadn’t bought Thanksgiving groceries ahead of time. Turkey Day promised to be a day of fasting, judging by the grim weather reports before the power finally failed.
But … our next door neighbors took pity and they gave us a snow goose from their freezer’s larder they’d hunted a few weeks earlier. If you want to know how the Pilgrims felt when the natives brought them a feast offering, we can tell you. That goose tasted like steak to us. That meal, with the oil lamps glowing and the world white with newfallen snow, was the one Thanksgiving we remember best.
I’m not advocating we all hunt snow goose to give to the South End Food Bank. But I do think we should all count our blessings. And even though the Hard Winters are a thing of the past for most of us, down here there are folks who still go hungry, not just on Thanksgiving, but all year long. Set a place at your heart’s table. And if you can, give more than just thanks this season.
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