THANKSGIVING THOUGHTS -- GOBBLE, GOBBLE

THE NATIONAL BIRD OF THE USA

Do you know why I put that caption there?  Give it a thought.  You must know that before the Bald Eagle was declared, by an act of congress to be the national bird, there had to be a discussion, right?  The guys in Washington had to debate the question right?  So, come on, you do agree with me that one of the candidates for the honor had to be the Wild Turkey, do you not?  Maybe someone knows, but unless we go back to the acts of Congress of the early 1780's, we won't really know.  What we do know is that Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to his daughter deriding congress and its decision to choose the Bald Eagle over the Wild Turkey.  Was he ever in on the discussion?  We do not know.  Is this a serious letter or a tongue-in-cheek bush beater?  We don't know that either.  So, the Bald Eagle it is and my national bird remains:

Now, a moment of autobiographical revelation.  Turkey was rarely, if ever, the center piece of the Thanksgiving celebration on 1 Hartford Street.  We had a huge pot of stew made of  meat balls, pigs' hocks and thickened with a generous amount of burnt wheat flower.  The technical, scientific name for this delicacy is "Ragou au Pates de Cochon."  It is the one meal that MJT Dion did and her pre-eminence in the art of its preparation was never challenged by anyone else.  This stew, perhaps a cousin of  Acadian Gumbo, has not graced our table for nigh on to 27+ years, as follows:

It was a year when Edward Dion, who was suffering from Alzheimer's Syndrome had occasional outbursts of clarity.  MJT decided to fight her agora phobia to come to Southern California accompanied by her grand-daughter Lisa, just for Thanksgiving.  It was a foregone conclusion that the STEW was the fare of the day.  We all put in our time for the meticulous preparation.  The crowning moment was when Ed arrived and saw "Mina", he smiled, got happily agitated and for about ten minutes stayed close to "Mina" though he could not speak.  She too was speechless, but from emotion.  It was a marvelous celebration.  I will never forget it, and I'll bet that if you ask Lisa about it, she just made get a little weepy for a moment too.

Since then, we have turkey and bunch of other stuff.  We are a mixed culture household [always have been, only now it's more Asian than Canadian], so there are a lot of varied expressions of the celebration.  Except for one.  It is always a religious occasion for us.  I could get Theological and Biblical here, but let's just say, that if Thanksgiving is to be true to its nature, it has to take the Creator and the Father and the Son and the Spirit seriously in the expression of gratitude.  Even if you start with the centuries old tradition of harvest festivals, we are convinced that you have to place God at the head of the event.  Therefore, no matter what your position about Thanksgiving is, please remember, for at least one instant, that it goes beyond the turkey to God.  That, my friends, is my thought for the day.