Happy Thanksgiving - 2019

Jo Ann Rebane: Thanksgiving reflections from my childhood 

My family lived in Alhambra (southern California) and so did my maternal grandparents, my bachelor uncle, and my paternal grandmother.  We always dressed up for any meal at my grandparent’s house, especially Thanksgiving.  Daddy wore a suit, Mama wore a nice dress, and my sister and I often wore matching dresses that my mother had sewn for us, and of course our good shoes.

Grandma Clara was a fine cook, roasted a turkey to perfection, made tasty smooth gravy, and was a master of flaky pie crust which usually had a pumpkin filling.  The dining room table was set with Grandma’s fine china decorated with little yellow flowers, thumbprint Fostoria crystal goblets, and white linen table cloth and napkins.  My Grandparents sat at either end of the table.  My mother sat between my sister and me with our backs to the buffet while Daddy sat between his mother and my uncle on the side of the table facing us. 

The Thanksgiving table scene could have been straight out of the above Norman Rockwell painting.  Grandpa Charles sat at the head of the table and to my right.  Between us was a card table where the side dishes resided.  After my father said grace, Grandpa, a butcher in his youth, conducted the ritual sharpening of the carving knife against the steel.  Then he proceeded to create perfect slices of white meat and laid them on the edge of the turkey platter.  He released the drumstick and skillfully worked between the tendons to separate the dark meat. 

My job, which I took seriously, was to serve a portion of each side onto each plate after Grandpa had placed the turkey on it and then pass it along.  Conversation centered on school and church news, sports, and my uncle’s recent experiences in the Navy.  After the meal, Grandpa excused himself to listen to the ball game on the radio (before TV).  Daddy followed his little girls into the front room to read the newspaper, or watch us color, and also read when we were older.  Clean up was conducted in the kitchen with Grandma washing every dish, pot and pan, Mama rinsed, and my uncle did the drying, often flourishing the dishtowel like a matador’s cape.  

Later the adults played canasta at a card table set up in the front room where a fire crackled in the fireplace.  This was followed by the best part of the day - for a late snack we each made our own turkey sandwiches on good bread onto which I liked to put on lots of mayonnaise, crispy lettuce, and pickles.  After that we all said good night and Daddy drove us home in the dark.

Comments

[scenes]

Happy Thanksgiving, patriots and bolshies all!

[Bill Tozer]

Beautiful story, Jo Ann. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/george-washingtons-thanksgiving-proclamation-what-different-era

[Walt]

Happy ThanksGiving to one and all.. And even to the Lefties..

[Scott O]

Thank you, Jo Ann - That does sound like a real Rockwell type of setting. I have an aunt and uncle who moved to Alhambra in 1960 and still live there today.
Our family was a little less formal, but there was still the 'routine' and everyone had their assigned duties. And every Friday the day after, it was off to San Francisco (with leftovers stuffed in the cooler) to visit my father's relatives.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We do have much to be thankful for.

[Todd Juvinall]

Happy Thanksgiving to all of us deplorables. The ones that grow the turkeys and the food and then transport it to the "socialist equals of the cities. LOL!

[Don Bessee]

Happy Thanksgiving and we have a lot to be thankful for this year!

;-)

[Barry Pruett]

Happy thanksgiving Rebanes!

[Don Bessee]

A special Thanksgiving for our troops in the field in Afghanistan -

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/28/donald-trump-makes-surprise-thanksgiving-visit-to-afghanistan-to-address-u-s-troops/

;-)

[scenes]

A fine Thanksgiving column.

"At yesterday’s Thanksgiving table, fifteen adults present, there was not one word uttered about impeachment, Russia, Ukraine, and, most notably, a certain Golden Golem of Greatness, whose arrival at the center of American life three years ago kicked off a political hysteria not witnessed across this land since southern “fire eaters” lay siege to Fort Sumter.

I wonder if some great fatigue of the mind has set in among the class of people who follow the news and especially the tortured antics of Rep. Adam Schiff’s goat rodeo in the House intel Committee the past month. I wonder what the rest of congress is detecting among its constituents back home during this holiday hiatus. I suspect it is that same eerie absence of chatter I noticed, and what it may portend about the nation’s disposition toward reality.
.....

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-turnaround/

[George Rebane]

scenes 811am - And then again, it may just be a Thanksgiving truce ushered in by the remnants of our rapidly disappearing common culture.

[Russ]

Interesting, Thanksgiving. We have a conservative vs liberal truce agreement for family holidays, but there is often bashing chatter between the liberals in the family. None was observed this Thanksgiving. Silence!

[Bill Tozer]

Scenes is on to something. I sense a national Lefty deflation for the past few days. What goes up, must come down. Pivot to Climate Meltdown Crisis.

[scenes]

re: BillT@12:37PM

To the degree that any recent ginned up Orange Hitler crises have taken place, I'd say that Team Blue's timing is out of whack. It's like how *when* notes are played vs. *which* notes are played, a recapture of the executive branch and all the associated lucre that goes with depended a lot on a kind of rhythm of attention.

Whether Crazy Eyes Schiff has an ex-girlfriend of Trump's waiting in the wings remains to be seen, although the Mob doesn't appear to be that good at planning.

The God-Emperor grinds forward, his wonders to behold. There's no telling what the next mini-drama will be.

[Bill Tozer]

Scenes. This might interest you. Maybe not. I rarely watch full podcasts...start at 9:00 minutes and see what the Lamestream is trying to sweep under the carpet and get ahead of. It’s already fooled Carlos Casaba. Take in a few minutes if you got the time...or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NCei60Fq5Y&list=PL6m8-jhwmbMQ3nOyPZxQw-zB7xnvStr48

[Walt]

The holiday "truce" lasts till about half way through the bottle. Then the safeties seem to come off.

[scenes]

re: BillT@1:47

Not bad. Just to cut to the chase, I always thought that this was a great, single frame example of modern media at work.

https://i.imgur.com/QbqwZJq.jpg

[Bill Tozer]

Brother Walt

https://www.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.217983685002343/1801044890029540/?

https://www.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.254420818025296/1799372466863449/?

https://www.facebook.com/Rowdier2/photos/a.1833077310237549/2292891134256162/?

And when things got really slow, someone asked, “So, what about that impeachment?”

[scenes]

GeorgeR: "And then again, it may just be a Thanksgiving truce ushered in by the remnants of our rapidly disappearing common culture."

That's possible. Perhaps as the culture disappears (or more likely, turns into a batch of warring cultures), we'll trend towards Caesarism.

When the center cannot hold, and we'll jointly agree to avoid loosing anarchy upon the world, nudging towards strong-man politics is the order of the day. In the US, the Imperial Presidency. In the USSR/Russia, Putin. I fully expect someone to emerge in the EU.

That Spengler knew what he was about.

[Walt]

Bill.. The second in the list is what I would pull.
Like for the Son in law's parents.

[scenes]

re: BillT@1:47PM

A bit of a slog but he does speak well. You may likee or not, the price is right.

Even the alt-right appears to be running out of gas to some extent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmHGT61Eym0

[George Rebane]

scenes 300pm - Ah yes, the man on the white horse to save the day. I personally hope that we instead execute a Great Divide with one side dedicated to the preservation to our western heritage allowing culture to evolve going forward, instead of today's throwing it under the bus and substituting politically correct autocracy. (It's amazing how progressives don't know jack about the authoritarian system they are ushering in.)

[Bill Tozer]

@ 3:18 pm

Good one. A life not examined is a life not worth living. And it’s not a one-and-done exercise.

“How to be healthy in an age of sickness” stuck. Sometimes the light is brutal...perhaps it is Divine mercy that we don’t get too much light all at once.