Recollections of Thanksgiving

"There’s nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor…that it was from the hand of God.” Ecclesiastes 2:24


Thanksgiving…the very concept conjures up evocative nostalgia. A silent bell tolls in our hearts, reviving the infused pilgrim spirit inherited from the Plymouth Plantation. Tradition is dusted off and Norman Rockwell is resurrected in anticipation of another year of family togetherness.

The vast dispersion will soon begin, that obligatory migration for millions of extended families making their pilgrimage. Expressways and airports will be clogged, folks in a hurry, tempers short, children exhausted, courtesies abandoned. With luck they will arrive, this swarm of family locusts, descending on the old home place with one thought in mind: The Thanksgiving Dinner!

The year’s final harvest is in. Not that most have any sweat equity in it. Why toil? Now it’s too easy to purchase the fruits of another’s labor. In fact, harvests today bear little resemblance to harvests of a bygone era. Few remain who recall the days when mules were tractors, the days of smokehouse hams and sausages, hog-killings, of syrup-making, of pumpkin gathering and sweet potato banks…days when the air was crisp, the grass frosty…days before irrigation, genetic seed engineering and perennially imported harvests.

Former harvests were unpredictable, subject to the vicissitudes of nature and insects, and rife with the sweat of hard labor. In those days serious supplications were made for Divine favor, unlike the easy platitudes now uttered. Today the term “harvest” has lost its strength. Our hands, soft without blisters, give us away. Cash is our reaping scythe.

At the Plymouth Plantation, 1621, the harvest was hard-earned from the hardscrabble earth. The community pooled their resources and labor to eke out a living. “Thanksgiving” meant gratitude then! Plus, it was not secular like the multitude of pagan harvest festivals. It was a genuine thanksgiving to the Creator for the land’s bounty. Imagine yourself at this first Puritan Thanksgiving.

“Honey, get up, light the fire, get out of the kitchen and do your hunting thing... and don’t come back here without a turkey or smelling like beer,” the woman would say. “And on your way out shake the kids…I need more fire wood. Now!” Women ruled the roost then, as now, on Thanksgiving. Men fled from the kitchens.

Candles flickered in the homes of the small plantation as the day dawned and preparation was made for the harvest celebration. The community was alive with jubilation, and scents of cooking food wafted in the cold November air. Laughter echoed as men passed around jugs of cider by the village fires. Football had yet to be invented.

Even the indigenous savages arrived, bearing an abundance of turnips, corn and fish. By noon the village was assembled, thanks given to the Almighty for the bounty of another year, and the feast began. It lasted for days. Somehow feasts are more enjoyable with a crowd.

Yet most are indifferent to the idea of a communal Thanksgiving. Churches and charities do their best to feed the hungry, but it represents only the essence of the collective spirit. We’re a nation of individuals, gathering with friends and family in smaller assemblages. We remain segregated from the egalitarian life of our communities. As a consequence, we fail to reap their intrinsic strengths.

Notwithstanding, it remains a warm celebration of congeniality and reunion, and a time of remembrance. Yes, to remember the “old days,” to remember the ones who have passed on, those who have moved on and those who remain. And a remembrance of happy times, to laugh, and maybe even cry a little.

Thanksgiving would be incomplete without the often comedic dysfunctional aspects of family homecomings. After a few days of “catching up,” and with everyone sick of turkey and dressing, and often each other, the party breaks up and the crowd heads home.

With packed cars, abundant hugs and a few turkey sandwiches to go, the weary pilgrims depart and join the returning throngs, cursing the traffic and vowing never to do it again…until next year, that is.

Next year has now arrived, and the Tradition of Thanksgiving is revived in our hearts. We’ll celebrate another Thanksgiving Harvest in our Land of Freedom, a gift of Grace from the beneficent hand of God.

As you gather around your tables, remember to thank The Source of all blessings. And while you’re at it, remember to thank the turkey for giving its last, full measure of devotion!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

Bud Hearn
November 23, 2011

The Reluctant Turkey

I am a turkey, born, or rather, hatched…a freak of nature. Not of choice, mind you, for who has a choice? These things happen. This is my story of Thanksgiving

I hatched in 28 days like the others. But I suspected something was wrong when I heard my family wailing and gnashing their beaks, “What went wrong, mama…have you been tom-turkeying around the barnyard? Is it a rara avis? Let’s name it R. T.”

I soon figured out the problem. Turkey poults grow rapidly. I didn’t. All that grew was my neck and my snool, a sporty red beard. While my peers grew large in girth and chest, I grew long in neck, big in head.

I was an anorexic hatchling. Since someone is always to blame for everything, I accused my ancestry, a cross-breed of the Bourbon breed of New Orleans and the Royal Palm sophisticates of South Florida. I’m a living example of a gene gone wild.

Life deals the cards—our role is to play the hand dealt. I drew a bad hand and was a constant embarrassment. I was a nerd from the get-go with a keen sense for survival. Let’s just say nature shorted me on one hand but made up for it on the other.

Being scrawny and bow-legged, I was the playground piñata for every bully and insecure jerk tom who called me names, like “runt, pencil-neck and skinny.” I got no respect. Even the hens fled when I approached, giggling as they ran. My mama escorted me to turkey school, a daily embarrassment.

I wasn’t invited to play the barnyard turkey games. Those were reserved for the NFL wannabe’s. They were the big eaters who hung out in the jock dorm, bragging of their pumped-up pecs and heavy bench presses. The rest of us roosted on a fence.

Being a loner, I observed turkey nature and realized quickly that something was not right in this barnyard. I was always a picky eater, an herb and salad guy, despising the turkey chow. I grew little while the others swelled to prodigious proportions overnight.

Twice a day the feed wagon arrived. Hormone-infused turkey chow was emptied into feeding troughs by burly men with long beards. It put a South Georgia thanksgiving buffet to shame. The men would say, “Now, you birds eat up, ya hear? Thanksgiving’s getting close,” patting their bellies and laughing. I once tasted the cuisine, but it had the aroma of poison.

I was as skinny as a starving monk, but smart. I knew there’s no such thing as a “free lunch,” or free anything. I kept warning this ignorant and gluttonous brood, “Boys and girls, this food isn’t free…there’s a catch.” No one listened.

One fall day a white truck with wire cages entered the barnyard. The bib-overall boys bounded out and opened the gate. Me? I slinked to the back corner of the yard, knowing something evil was about to go down. A beautiful White-breed turkey emerged from a cage, and the jock-toms went stark raving mad. I knew what they had in mind. But it was a trick. This was not an ordinary turkey…this hen had experience, you could tell.

She pranced around the yard, enraging the hens and arousing the toms. Fights ensued, feathers flew in the frenzy as the toms assaulted one another for her attention. The hens bristled. The toms had only one hen in mind now. I crouched further into the shadows of the barn, watching this turmoil and thinking, “This ain’t natural.”

Soon one of the men began to cluck and yelp on a turkey call. The White hen sashayed seductively towards the truck, followed mindlessly in a collective swoon by the food-anesthetized toms. The hens could not tolerate losing their toms to this hussy, so they marched proudly behind them onto the truck with its open, waiting prisons.

I kept quiet, stayed low. I knew all along what she was…a Judas turkey, herding these ignorant birds off to where nothing good would happen. The free feed bag was over…the bill had come due. I felt sorrow for them.

Here I was, abandoned and alone in this big, deserted barnyard. I longed for companionship. There was none. I slept in the empty jock dorm, still smelling of turkey musk, wondering about tomorrow.

Tomorrow came. Feeling safe, I strutted, scratching up what few herbs remained. The white truck pulled up again. The burley men opened the door. Down the shoot came a fresh crop of young Narragansett hens. What’s this, I wondered, sitting on the fence post. They looked around the yard, then at me. What, were they were attracted to R. T.?

Observing the approaching tableau, Roy Orbison began to sing to me, “Pretty women, don’t you on walk on by, pretty women, don’t you make me cry, pretty women, you look lovely as can be, are you lonely just like me?”

Thanksgivings come in many ways. “Here I am, girls, R. T., the barnyard stud.” Now that’s my idea of Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you, and strut proudly in your own barnyard…gobble, gobble. R. T.

Bud Hearn
November 17, 2011

Hip Replacement…The Anatomy of Torture

I’m in the doctor’s office again. We review the X-rays. Bad news.
“How do I stand, Doc?” I say. “Mystery to me,” he says.
I ask what the problem is. “Square peg in a round hole.”
I ask why. Says I’m old. That explains nothing, yet everything.
I ask if it’s serious. He says only if I have plans to walk.
He gives me a brochure. A sailboat, a couple in love, dancing, drinking.
I take the bait. Cha-ching. I’m his next year’s new BMW.

“No rush, you’ll know when,” he says. I hobble home, curse my birth.
I renew church membership, begin tithing. God heals, right?
The condition worsens, demands a second opinion. I throw good money after bad.
“Square peg in a round hole,” the Mayo pro says. “Cards you were dealt.”
“When?” I ask. “When you pound on my desk,” he says.
The bad-news bill beats me home. I pound on my chest. Then the desk.

I soon yield. New hip. I schedule it. I’m relieved. I marvel at my courage.
A week away I’m back in church. I give God another chance. He’s busy.
I toss $20 bucks in the plate for good measure. He answers with silence.
I take that as a No. God’s not impressed with $20’s. I keep the tip.
Two days remain. I’m anxious, call the stone mason.
White marble, I tell him, chisel 3-4-42---11-1-11. Rest in One Piece.

Finally, Showtime. Bad days arrive early. This one dawns at 7 AM.
Sign these papers, the nurse demands. “What’s in them?” I ask.
“Nothing that’s good for you.” She shoves the pen into my hand.
I sign away my life, my first born, deed to the house, get a number, 666.
They’ll call you by number, she snaps. I know that number. A bad sign.
I beg for another, mutter something about the anti-Christ. She hisses.

“Next, 666.” I tiptoe in. A nurse appears, picks her teeth with large needles.
I lie on a gurney in an open-air gown. She peeks. Then laughs. I’m disgraced.
Never trust women with beards to administer narcotics. Never trust women.
A man in an Armani suit with a red silk tie slithers in, discusses insurance.
He reads me my rights, asks for a financial statement. Says Medicare is broke.
Says overruns are my nickel. I curse him. He grins, lights up a big Cuban.

Things move fast. Catheters hang, tubes drip, monitors beep. I pray.
An orderly straps me down, rolls me away. Lights dazzle overhead.
I see a tray. It has tools. Black & Decker chain saw. Skil drills. Ace hammer.
Another tray. My options…a bottle of cheap gin, a jigger glass.
A silver bullet, a blindfold. Handcuffs, a stapler, pliers, a used Gideon.
Spectral faces surround. Light blinds me. Someone sharpens a knife.

I smell gasoline, the saw roars to life. I hear the whirr of the drill.
Voices shout. My leg is severed, ripped from its socket. I ask for more gin.
A sponge wets my lips, last rites are given. I lose consciousness.
I dream. Butchers mutilate my body. My cup runneth out. I float in clouds.
Voices of horror shriek in pain, hollow eyes stare through dark windows.
Humans heave in the mosh pit of penury, bereft of medical benefits.

They seize my hip, lacerate and tear it from my body. It wails.
They fling it ingloriously onto a stainless tray. It quivers in agony.
A pathologist examines it, toe-tags and labels it DOA.
I had asked to have it. The doctor objected. It’s mine, I pleaded.
“Why?” he asked. “Maybe a cane, or gear shift knob, or a necklace,” I say.
He shrugs. I hear the word ‘fool’ uttered under his breath.

I wake. Remember little. Feel for my leg. It’s re-attached. No pain. Yet!
Hands lift me, hand me a walker. I prowl the empty corridors.
I go to therapy. All women. I feign machismo. Fail miserably. They giggle.
The doctor visits, asks how I am. In agony, I squeal. He gives me an aspirin.
“Will I recover?” He says, “Consult God.” Leaves his bill. I review it, pass out.
The hospital ejects me. I wonder if I’m better off now.

The jury remains out.

Bud Hearn
November 10, 2011