The Unbroken Circle of Thanksgiving

As fall came and strong winds continued to blow off the never very warm Bay of Fundy, it became clear that we needed more heat than the electric baseboard variety. I hired someone to build us a brick chimney with a stone fireplace. It was not exactly the best idea for heat, but most wood stoves available in Nova Scotia those days were cookstoves. The fireplace added a lot of charm, and in a pinch, it could keep us warm if the power went out.
Eventually, the electric stove, refrigerator, and freezer got installed. We had decided on pine paneling for walls. The pine went up easily but as it dried, cracks showed between each board, so we took it down to be stored until it finished drying. There were major victories along the way, like having leak-free copper plumbing and actually being able to take a hot shower.
There were plenty of setbacks as we learned the hard lessons of independence. Sometimes just finding the right materials or pieces required a trip all the way down the Valley to Kentville. It was a forty-five-mile-long trip from Bridgetown on a winding two-lane highway through the small towns of the Annapolis Valley. It often took more than an hour each way.
That first year we were focused on Thanksgiving as a time to have the place relatively livable. We had college friends making the trek to Nova Scotia to see what the crazy guys who had gone back to the land were doing. Progress was made, but when the holiday rolled around, our kitchen cabinets were still wooden egg crates and we continued to drink out of recycled mayonnaise jars.
We worried little about bedrooms since in those days all we needed was a spot on a floor. An air mattress or some padding was as good as being in the Ritz for college students in the late sixties and early seventies.
Thanksgiving of 1971 became the first Thanksgiving that many of us had spent outside of a home without parents as lifelines. We had to figure out how to cook a turkey. Deciding what ingredients went into the stuffing was a lesson in diplomacy. Yet we managed to do it, and it seemed like getting our Thanksgiving dinner to the table was as important as graduating from college. Negotiating the celery content of dressing should be a college course.
Sally, Susan, Richard, Nancy, Gene, and David made the trip north. They needed to know of this place where the land had taken hold of their classmates. That first Thanksgiving there were long walks in the snow with old college friends and talk of what we were all going to do. As pictured at the top there were some post meal reading and naps by the cozy fire. It was back when we actually talked about things we read instead of posting our thoughts. Then Thanksgiving and the friends were gone.
Sobotta, David. A Taste for the Wild, Canada's Maritimes (p. 13). Kindle Edition.
Fifty-four years later, three children and seven homes in two provinces and three states have brightened our lives. We are now in Davie County, North Carolina, about thirty minutes from where I grew up. Our minature whole turkey this year only weighed seven pounds. Some of the college friends who visited are long gone and few more have vanished into the ether. Only Nancy and Sally are still part of our lives.
The relatively simple life of fifty plus years ago has vanished also and we are left to figure how to survive in an increasingly complex world. Today even people are most likely connected electronically. Thanksgiving tables often only have a few family members around them. We haven’t had a large family Thanksgiving dinner in over a decade, and it has been over twenty years since we had Thanksgiving with my mother, who was the last of our parents to pass away.
We still go through the ritual. My wife starts three days before the event. This year I cooked the turkey under the watchful eye of my wife. I also made our broccoli casserole and washed all the preparation dishes. My wife made the cranberry sauce, the stuffing, gravy and sweet potato casserole. Our son fixed the mashed potatoes and cleaned up after the meal.
It was a wonderful meal eaten on my wife’s holiday china. There were no long conversations like we had over fifty years ago when we were still figuring out what to do with our lives instead of looking back on what we have accomplished or missed. Those of us who are still here feel very blessed to still celebrate a Thanksgiving meal we cooked in our own home.

We wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. May you be in your own home, surrounded by loved ones.