Happy Thanksgiving 2012

Pilgrim children and pumpkins
on an end table in living room

I just have my orange decor on display and after tomorrow, Thanksgiving day, it will be time to put it away for another year.  Already the next holiday harbinger of red and green is showing around town as it has been in the stores before Halloween.  Thanksgiving has been an orange holiday for us hearkening back to  our lives in Newcastle, CA where we had a mandarin orange orchard and which meant the beginning of  orange harvest. 

The Sunday local newspaper featured Thanksgiving for empty nesters like us and showed how easy this holiday centering on  food can be.  Unlike so many years in CA when we hosted large gatherings and I cooked for a week after getting home from a long day at work in the bureaucracy, today it is just us two. When I am nostalgic for those gathering times, quickly Jerry reminds me how much work it was because none of the inlaws who descended lifted a hand or finger to help out.  It was all on me and some years I really resented all that work but still I would persist, and everyone enjoyed themselves.Once in awhile the sister in laws might load the dishwasher.  But setting the table, rearranging furniture to accommodate the crowd, and more including a housefull of overnight  and week long guests was on us.  I looked but  found no photographs of those times, long before digital cameras and we were both too busy to think of taking photos as well as we were not thinking ahead to when those days would be no more except in our memories, like the song, "those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end,....." 

 I am content without all the work for the fuss and nowhere as exhausted at days end after feast preparation, yet today we have more room to gather a crowd and the time to do so, but  we are all over the country and like Steve many are gone from this earth.  We have tried  eating out  on this day and neither of us like that, the crowds are great and despite reservations restaurants cannot control how long diners will linger, so there is always a wait.  No, besides we enjoy left overs the next day and turkey sandwiches and well, the aromas of that good stuff baking in the ovens.  This year I have downsized no turkey with carcass instead a simpler turkey breast for us two accompanied by all the trimmings,mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli casserole,  stuffing for me (Jerry does not eat it), cranberry for me (another delicacy of which he will sample a spoonful and then pass), pecan pie following dinner for him (a bite or two is all I want of that) and a relaxing day with time for a predinner walk to prepare for the consumption of calories. 

Tom turkey and pumpkin Patty

So now I photograph so many things, like the autumn decor in the house, my orange.  To the left is Tom, a turkey fellow  Aunt Jinx bought and dressed for Uncle Carl along with a wooden pumpkin that I painted and sent to him.  He  referred to these as in the caption and when I found them at his home, I had to keep them.  Tom has traveled in the motor home sometimes too when we were not sure how long we'd be gone.   After their spouses were gone they both dined on Thanksgiving dinner at her home and Uncle Carl would drive "out to the country" to get a fresh turkey from Pounds turkey farm.  When we first moved  we went back to PA to have Thanksgiving dinner with them.  Somewhere I do have those photos. 

I  close with something I found in an old Ideals magazine while looking for an appropriate Thanksgiving ode.  This is  Ben Franklin and his satire.  When humor and satire are gone, then so is the fun of life. We cannot take  everything so seriously or we are done for.  You may have to click on the copies to enlarge and read them.  And to all a joyous feast wherever life winds you, this  Thanksgiving.  May you celebrate with gratitude.     
  

    

Autumnal Inspiration

I love the brilliant colors displayed  this time of year like nature's last hurrah of brightness anticipating the  drab  browns  of winter that will soon be covered with a renewal coat of white.  I have borrowed both of these photos  from Old Moss Woman on Facebook.  Both show a brilliance of autumn and  reflections in the water.  All the brilliant leaves are gone now from the trees in town and on our property (yes  raking and leaf blowing is done at last.  

On my morning walks which sometimes become early afternoon depending on the temperature, I see barren brown branches  but here and there some pods of sorts add a glimmer of left over red or burnt umber.  The photos remind me of a poem I'd memorized in childhood by Robert Louis Stevenson, about burning leaves in fall.  That was  back when we did such things as memorize poems, considered inappropriate today the age of Cyber computers and supposedly  a different, some would say superior style of education.   I still believe we  gained mental skills by memorizing and the poetry has stayed with me my entire life.    

We sang or shouted this and other verses to jump rope and to count out time so others could hide when we played hide and seek.  We entertained ourselves and would never have imagined today's world where children exercise only their thumbs on electronics, not their imaginations....   Here's the poem although I do not recall its title I remember the words and the last line which was my favorite...yes we had bonfires....

                      In the other gardens and all up the vale,  
                      From the autumn bonfires see the smoke trail.

                      Pleasant summer over and all the summer flowers, 
                      The red fire blazes  the grey smoke towers.
                       Sing a song of seasons! 
                      Something bright in all!  
                      Flowers in the summer, fires in the fall!

 Someone unseen along that bank has tossed a pebble into the shimmery mirror of water or maybe there is a frog near or a bird has just dipped in.  What do you think....