Talking turkey

Home thoughts from abroad

Summer in England and my thoughts always turn to Thanksgiving. Will we be back in the States for it this year? Probably not. This November, as last, it looks like we’ll be staying put here in England.

We’ll still have Thanksgiving of course; turkey and cranberry sauce, potatoes and candied yam. Mac will make apple pie and afterwards we’ll all sit down in front of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and I’ll fall asleep in the chair.

But it won’t feel like Thanksgiving. It never does when your neighbors aren’t celebrating it. I never really thought about it before but a big part of Thanksgiving is knowing that your neighbors are doing the same thing. It’s comforting, kind of like being in the middle of a large herd - safe from harm and surrounded by friends and family.

I was home for Thanksgiving in 2000 and again 2001. Before 9/11 it was just like it had always been, afterwards it would never be the same again. We went out to the holiday sales, United We Stand signs everywhere and you couldn’t get a flag for love nor money. Sold out.

Now, when I watch the news and read the papers, visit blogs or talk to people on the phone, it looks and sounds like we’ve become a deeply divided nation. Seeing that, I sometimes think it’s better that we’re not going over this year.

I’d rather remember that earlier Thanksgiving in America when, perhaps because we had been so recently wounded, we shared the brief illusion that we would get through this thing together.