JOHN WALLACE: The wonder of Thanksgiving

Once again, we are smack dab in the middle of the most wonderful time of the year. It starts with Halloween, a holiday to celebrate those that went before us. Four weeks later, the most American of all our holidays, Thanksgiving. Then, four weeks later, we celebrate the birth of Jesus. It’s the season of love.

First, a brief history of Thanksgiving. About 5 billion years ago there was the Big Bang. Yada, yada, yada. In 1620, The Mayflower left Plymouth, England, with 102 Pilgrims searching for freedom. Sixty-six days later, they landed in Cape Cod. A month later, they landed in what was is now Massachusetts Bay.

They spent the winter aboard the ship. They lost about half of the assembly to the harshness of their new home.

In March of 1621, they moved on shore and were met by a native who spoke English. He came back a few days later with Squanto, a native who had been enslaved and went to London and learned English. He taught the Pilgrims to grow vegetables, fish and hunt deer, and introduced them to the local tribe.

After the harvest that year, the Pilgrims invited their friends to a Thanksgiving celebration in appreciation for the hospitality shown to the immigrants by the natives, a tradition that, in some quarters, has continued to this day.

In 1789, George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving Day proclamation by the U.S. government. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday. In 1941, FDR designated the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day.

When I was growing up, Thanksgiving was all about the feast. There was no candy to be collected from neighbors, no presents to be unwrapped from under the tree. It was all about the food, the plentiful bounty. And to give thanks for the good fortune of having been born in this country.

Relatives, friends and neighbors would come to visit. Up north in Yankeeland where I grew up, otherwise known as God’s country, you could feel Thanksgiving coming.

In September you would start school, but there were still warm days. By October, it would start to get what my mother called brisk mornings, but would still warm up some by afternoon. But she would start digging out “the winter clothes.”

By November, even Mother Nature was giving up on summer. Mornings would witness frost on the pumpkins and coats and scarves and mittens were the uniform of the day. The leaves on the trees turned brilliant reds and yellows, and would begin to fall on green lawns and create a kaleidoscope of color that would signal the start of the Thanksgiving season.

On Thanksgiving morning, there would be an early morning whirlwind in the kitchen and you would be warned at breakfast to stay out of the kitchen. So, it would be off to the living room in your pajamas to watch “The March of the Wooden Soldiers,” followed by “The Wizard of Oz.”

By now, Grandma and Aunt Martha would arrive and regale us with stories of New York City and the traffic they had to go through to get there. This would be the time that the men in the family would get the leaf extension for the kitchen table to expand it to accommodate 10 people.

The men would then be shooed out of the kitchen, and the women would do whatever it is they do in there to prepare a feast. The men would watch TV and give each other updates on the readiness of the turkey.

To this day I amaze my wife with my ability to tell if the turkey is done by the smell.

After giving thanks in prayer, the feast would begin. After the massacre of the turkey was complete, my father would retire to the couch and watch the Lions and the Cowboys play someone in football. Later, we would enjoy my favorite part of Thanksgiving — turkey sandwiches with stuffing and cranberry slices.

After I joined the service, we would always try to get home for the holidays. But when we couldn’t, my wife would prepare a feast and make me go down to the barracks and round up all the kids who couldn’t get home that year and bring them to our house.

Those are among our favorite memories of Thanksgiving. The spirit of Thanksgiving.

So here’s hoping you have a happy holiday. Enjoy the camaraderie of loved ones and shared memories and make some new ones.

And may God bless America. Hey, may God bless everyone.

John Wallace of Lee County is an occasional contributor to The Albany Herald Perspectives page.