George Bernard Shaw once offered a toothy observation about Christianity. He said it was a great religion. Maybe someone should try practicing it someday. For me? Ditto with Thanksgiving. It deserves being set into motion with more regularity than a hurried and mumbled prayer every last Thursday of November.
I can’t recall two Thanksgivings remotely the same. I was 7 when my folks divorced. In second grade, I went with my dad. We moved from Chatsworth to Palo Alto and he got himself a job on the 3-to-midnight swing shift and had to work that Thanksgiving. Dear, dear Dad apologized for leaving me to my own devices on that particular Thursday in 1957, but, he had to work and Thanksgivings weren’t remotely anything special prior. It brings a smile, remembering a littler version of me, sitting in a cruller emporium, enjoying coffee and a doughnut. Alone, I recall getting strange looks. The things one remembers. That entire meal ended up costing me 35 cents. Coffee and a doughnut today? Runs closer to five bucks and that’s without the gravy.
I’ve had Thanksgivings running the spectrum from splendiferous to Twilight Zone weird, from being the only one at a table to part of a joyous battalion. It was decades ago and my niece-like substance, Stefanie, sat across from me. There were easily 40 people at that meal. A beautiful day, we jerry-rigged tables that stretched like an aircraft carrier, and Stef, 10 then, asked if I could pass the salt.
“And what do we say?” I asked, sing-songy.
Stefanie squinted. “Pass the salt, damn you …”
“You are SO my girl,” I said, grinning. To this day, she unfairly accuses me of oversalting my food and I make a theatrical production of staring deep into her eyes as I take off the lid to the salt shaker and sprinkle the life-giving mineral over everything except those rare holidays when there’s Dr. Pepper.
Even though they didn’t remotely like one another, my parents eventually got back together. They were in their dotage and I was beginning to show signs of sliding out of the Spring Chicken Demographic. It’s no secret I’m wicked and that Thanksgiving, we went to Carl’s Jr. on Lyons Avenue to, well. “Celebrate” is the wrong word. “Eat” seems descriptive. Since childhood, I was always the entertainment, the emcee. Walking into the burgertorium, I conducted a small experiment. I would just politely — be there. But, I wouldn’t say a word, just to see if anyone would start a conversation, a la, “How’s the fries?” We ate our fast food in complete silence and were out the door in less than a half-hour. I don’t think they noticed Thanksgiving passed without comment. In the parking lot, I hugged them both and told them not just that I loved them, but “… loved them to pieces.” It was as if they blossomed, right there on the asphalt.
I desperately need to stretch out Thanksgiving, beyond rinsing dishes and football, making sandwiches the next day with the obligatory half-pound of mayo and, if Stef’s reading — 1.5 POUNDS OF SALT.
There’s a selfish reason to practice Thanksgiving, or, gratitude as a handy synonym. Why? Too few schools or homes teach this invaluable Life’s lesson and it is this: We become what we practice. Even better? It multiplies. It grows at astounding levels. It’s a universal template for anything. Your golf game. Playing the piano. Sit-ups. Shooting free throws. I have to throw in the caveat that it helps to acquire some halfway decent tutoring because a chimp can attempt to swing a golf club and spend a lifetime holding the club by the wrong end.
There’s a government one-liner stuck to the metaphorical shoe like toilet paper, but, it’s Thanksgiving and I shall take the high road.
Borderline dunderhead I am, I’ll forget I made a decision to take the high road. I’ll slip, stinking seconds later. Knock on wood, I won’t beat myself up. I’ll dust myself off, hopefully with a smile, and have at it again. And again. And again. Why? Because one doesn’t become a decent golfer, pianist or human being by hitting one ball, striking one piano key or performing one, single kind act, for others or themselves, over a single lifetime.
We get good at what we practice. Unfortunately, that also works quite well to the negative. People become accomplished, Renaissance masters if you will, at watching TV. Or sitting too much. Or griping. Or carrying grudges. Or boasting about their ills and limitations. Or wishing a pox upon this darn political figure or that dratted yada-yada.
Prayer and practice? They’re one in the same, and, most scary, there are such things as dark prayers. We utter them constantly, often, unconsciously. These dark prayers then boomerang right back, sometimes manifesting as maladies in our own minds and bodies.
I’m spending this Thanksgiving weekend with my daughter, maybe get in a little saddle time, certainly find a bench or small boulder in the woods and just sit, watch the clouds go by.
I’m not — going to. I’m working already on bringing a new holiday into my life. It’s called, the OmniThanksgiving.
Instead of one of those 8-seconds in rodeo-time, hey-batter-batter-batter, once-yearly beseechments before I fall face first in the mashed potatoes, I’m going to work on being grateful.
Even about those sharp-edged, gooey, poisonous things and people about which and whom I’m not particularly fond.
Of.
So I don’t know about you guys. I do wish all y’all a splendiferous Thanksgiving. I don’t know about youse guys, but I’ve got a few dozen things wrong with me and several billion things right. I’m going to be grateful for all that’s right.
Dear Santa Claritans. May you swoon from the turkey, gravy, pumpkin pie or Thai take-out (hopefully, not all on the same plate).
“Naked Came the Novelist,” Boston’s long-awaited sequel to “Naked Came the Sasquatch,” is on sale at JohnBoston-Books.com. John Boston, with 119 major writing awards, is Earth history’s most prolific humorist and satirist.
