Thanksgiving 2022

 

Thanksgiving is a national holiday for us today and every year. This morning I made a list of things I am thankful for, and it produced some thoughts. Is it my thanksgiving or ours? What is this day really about?

I have a good life to look back on or think about now. My personal thanks are from the past to the present, about life together with others, and about me as an individual. That is good. But also this day is a national holiday. As a child I learned in school or from society that some white people and some Indians got together and had a feast together as an act of supposed friendship at some time in our racist past. Maybe it happened; maybe not. Our history is full of mythology. Race issues continue to this day.

It appears now that a lot of people see Thanksgiving Day is a time to join together with family and friends to have a big dinner dominated by roast turkey and trimmings. We give thanks as we socialize. Then a lot of people say goodbye and look to the biggest shopping day of the year. The big turkey day is the beginning of buying and spending and worshiping the dollar.

My list of things to be thankful for begins with the ability to do and have all the things on the list; that is what we live with as Americans. I have a good education and I don’t have to go outside with my head and body covered as some women elsewhere do. I have the right to vote, which American women have had for only the last hundred years or so. I participate in Social Security and Medicare as an old person. The American system has given that to me.

Personally, I have much to thank God and others for. Here is the list I put together this morning as my act of appreciation for my good life. Some of it is individual and some about being together.  Thanks for being with others: friends; church; good loving parents, brothers, children and grandchildren; safe home environment in the city of Madison; and of course Pete, the number one man in my present life. Thanks also to Rick, my husband of 46 years of difficult times and good times.

Individually I have much to be thankful for. I have talents and abilities; a safe home in Madison; mostly good health; have not had Covid; food on the table. That is about me and thanksgiving. All my personal blessings come with the benefits of being with others. We don’t do it alone.

As I have said many times, we are all in this together. Happy Thanksgiving.

Nut Tarts

Now that everyone is anticipating the gustatory delights of the Christmas season, and the resulting corpulence, here is the recipe for my world famous nut tarts. I got it from a spiral bound booklet published without date or copyright in the 1960s, called The Electric Company Christmas Cooky Book. It came from the Wisconsin Electric Power Company in Milwaukee. I picked it up during the year of my residence there. These tarts are very good and easy to make.

Nut Tarts

3 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon melted butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Blend room temperature cheese, butter and flour; chill for 1 hour. Divide into 24 equal parts; shape each part into a small ball. Press onto bottom and 1/2 inch up the side of small buttered (2 inch) muffin cups; chill. Blend remaining ingredients; place one teaspoonful of mixure in each pastry shell. Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes. Makes 2 dozen small tarts.

Memorial Day and Others

Yesterday was Memorial Day. The national holiday exists as a way to formally remember dead members of the American armed forces of all wars. The New York Times Almanac says that it honors soldiers fallen in battle, dating from the civil war. In real life it honors dead people even if they survived the wars.

This holiday has become a time to wave flags, have parades, decorate graves, and, yes, honor our military dead, whether dead from battle or other causes. I am glad that the city of Madison honored Rick as a veteran of the Korean war, along with others who served in the military, although I did not go to the ceremony. I did stop to visit the graves of my parents and grandmother in Sturgeon Bay.

Since I was on the road yesterday with the radio tuned to my favorite radio station (WDOR), I listened to a program that gave rise to the thought that maybe some of us are mixing the national holiday with religious sentiment. The program, Heroes, was a well performed musical and spoken tribute to some people who did good things in their lives and were, therefore, heroes. Most of the program was music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Not surprisingly, the program was produced in Salt Lake City.

I enjoyed the music but was a bit troubled about the question of blurring separation of church and state in honor of this holiday. They sang America the Beautiful and Amazing Grace, along with some others. One of the Heroes was someone who became a pastor or minister.

It’s interesting to me that Memorial Day, in some places, has religious overtones while being a national, not religious, holiday. And vice versa. So much for separation of church and state.

We blur the line for other national holidays, most notably Thanksgiving Day, when we give thanks for plenty of food and other things. Some churches have Thanksgiving Day services, even though it is a national holiday that remembers the early settlers surviving their colonization and bringing in their first harvest. The mythology brings in some happy Indians who help celebrate. This day is a day of prayer and feasting in celebration mostly about how wonderful our early settlers were to give us this bountiful nation. The native Americans may have a different view of this day.

I think the most pointless of our national days is St. Patrick’s Day. It is religious, political and social all in one. St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. Somehow the entire United States has adopted St. Patrick, with Irish stew, green clothes, green beer, green rivers, and parades. To me it makes little sense except in church. The second most pointless day is Groundhog Day. Who really cares about the myth about the weather? It's all fun. Fun is ok, but should we have a holiday for it?

Some holidays are Christian but have secular expressions. Christmas and Easter are both religious and secular. Just think about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Do rabbits lay colored eggs? Even the President does Easter with an egg hunt annually on the White House lawn.

A little more than a week ago we had Armed Forces Day, the third Saturday of May. I didn’t notice anyone celebrating that. And National Maritime Day was May 22. Missed that one, too. National Teacher Day was the Tuesday of the first full week in May, May 12. We could honor teachers by giving better funding to education for all ages. Of course we all celebrated Mother’s Day May 10, a day that Rick called a Hallmark holiday because it increased greeting card business.

There are others. The mythology just hasn’t caught up with me yet.