Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Blessings? It Could Be Worse.

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“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.”-Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

It is easy to be depressed on Thanksgiving, 2022…or lately any Thanksgiving this decade. Then I think about my Native American brethren and realize that it has been a rough two and a half centuries for them. I don’t know who thought celebrating Native American Heritage Month in the same month as the Native American National Day of Mourning, aka Thanksgiving, was a great idea. Regardless, President Bush signed it into law in 1990.

While I identify with my Native American blood brothers, there are reasons to celebrate and be thankful.

I’m thankful that a (cisgender) veteran attended Club Q in Colorado Springs. They were celebrating Transgender Remembrance Day, a day to remember those lost to violence against or suicide. With the help of a Drag Queen in high heels, they were able to limit the death and destruction that claimed five lives, taking down a shooter armed with a “long gun” and pistol.  I am also thankful for the darkly humorous image of a Drag Queen dressed in his/her finery dancing on the murderer’s head in stiletto heels. Too soon? There is a reason they are called “stiletto” heels.

I’m also thankful that the veteran and his family were at a Queer venue celebrating people who have, for a too long, been considered the others by others who don’t believe people outside of the “box” deserve such basic rights as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I’m sorry they lost their daughter’s boyfriend to the carnage. I’m also sorry that the best we can offer to the families and friends of those lost in the previous seven hundred or so mass shootings this year is thoughts and prayers.

I would like to be thankful for the absence of hatred in the world but instead will celebrate an Iranian men’s soccer team who stood in mute solidarity protesting the treatment of Iranian women at home as their national anthem played at the World Cup and the English team who knelt during theirs supporting social justice for all. The American team did nothing but tie with Wales. Sorry American right-wingers, nothing for you to ridicule and celebrate against. I’m thankful for that too.

These are going to sound like a litany of “hurray for me and the hell with everyone else” and they might be.

I’m thankful that despite inflation numbers and high gas and food prices, I’m doing okay. I have money in the bank and a retirement. I’m thankful inflation will correct itself, eventually. I am thankful that despite gas prices, I will make the road trip to my family’s gathering instead of being sequestered during a pandemic. I’m also unhappy that because of the road trip I will not have the opportunity to sample any brown liquor.

I’m thankful I haven’t lost any family members or friends recently to the pandemic and pray that the building “triple threat” burns itself out quickly.

I’m thankful that I recently came through my yearly bank of physicals and am in “fine fiddle “although with Afib, the fiddle might be a bit out of tune. There are many my age who are not as healthy. I’m thankful I look so much younger than those my age. LOL.

I’m thankful I am sitting in an airish old farmhouse with heat and electricity and a running refrigerator with food in it. I could gripe about the price of electricity, but I could also be sitting in a cold and dark Ukrainian flat as missiles and artillery shells rain down.

I’m thankful I’m not on a dusty South American road trekking to gain asylum in a country that doesn’t seem to want me despite the quote on the Statue of Liberty,

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
― Emma Lazarus

I’m thankful for a family to visit over Thanksgiving and celebrate memories of family members no longer with us. So many folks had less than the childhood I lived. I was truly blessed.

I’m thankful for and proud of my immediate family.

My rock Linda Gail, I can’t contemplate a world without you. The fact we found each other makes me believe there actually is a God.

Ashley and Justin. I am proud of the people you are and the parents you are. I still think you’ve too many irons in the fire. You are wonderful, rocks in your own right.

Kate and Nolan, you are both heart breakers. I’m so proud of your confidence and fearlessness…some of your fearlessness causes my heart to stop but if you survive, it will serve you well.

Steve and Rebecca, I’m proud to call you brother and sister-in-law. I live much of my life vicariously through you…so you went to Folly Beach, did you? I just committed the sin of envy.

Joyce, I’m thankful you treated me much like the son you never had, and for keeping me tied to home, and with it, my mother, and my grandmother.

Kim, Lynn, and Terri, thanks for being the sisters I never had and like your mother, tying me to my home that once existed along a dusty dirt road.

Bob, thanks for being Lynn’s rock, I know it is a challenge.

Lawrence and Stephanie, I’m thankful you have the family you always wanted and am proud to call you kin.

Hawk, I consider you family. Thanks for being there buddy, and thanks for your perspective on the world and God…I don’t necessarily agree but perspectives are like M&M’s, assorted colors, and flavors.

Lynn C, thanks for letting me bounce ideas off your head and your support. Glad we reconnected after such a long time.

I am quite blessed it seems…and I almost forgot. Quigley and Cora, thanks for your unconditional love and the puppy kisses I receive despite knowing where your tongues have been.

To all my friends, known and unknown, especially those of you who take time to read these, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. To my family, Happy Thanksgiving.

***

Postscript

This was written before the murder of six people at a Walmart in Virginia and the suicide of their murderer. Seven-gun deaths means it is jusanother day in America and I refuse to send empty thoughts and prayers.

***

Don Miller’s most recent releases is the historical fiction “Thunder Along the Copperhead” and the nonfiction “Pig Trails and Rabbit Holes.” Both may be purchased in paperback or downloaded on Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR0LGf5HUb84nQnPB-sFQF7KaqSOW6sGsSSu1_ltf1FuWh1Wj2nSIad1uYQ

Blessings…

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“I am tighter than a tick.  I cannot eat another bite…pecan pie you say? Well, maybe a smidge.” -quote from Thanksgiving tables across the nation

It is that time again. Belt bustin,’ pants button poppin’, asleep watchin’ the football game time. Turkey and dressing time…cornbread dressing with a lot of sage and not bread stuffing, thank you. Moist on the inside, crispy on the outside. Impossible? I take mine sans gravy.

Cranberry sauce right out of the can with the little ridges so you know where to cut it for a serving.  That was a joke, I hate cranberry sauce right out of the can even though there is a warm memory from my youth there somewhere.

My Aunt’s butterscotch pudding topped with a toasted meringue that reminds me of my mother’s butterscotch pudding that was passed down from generation to generation but went with her to her grave. Pecan pie, oh my.

My cousin Kim’s broccoli casserole, Bob’s ham, and any new dish my brother, Steve, decides to try out on us. Those bacon wrapped brussels sprouts in a balsamic vinegar reduction were dang good. My bride’s tomato pies. Yes, Thanksgiving will give me a good start on my holiday ten-pound weight increase that I don’t need.

Now if we can keep the political discussions to a minimum….

Thanksgiving and before you turn around, Christmastime…and then New Years. I hear my arteries clogging as I contemplate sausage balls washed down with alcohol laced eggnog before a drunken, snack filled evening ringing in the New Year. That is a lie, I haven’t rung in the New Year anywhere but at home in a coon’s age. Drunken? Not in forty years. I do admit that there might be a liquor drink before I kiss my bride “Happy New Year’s” …and one after.

Truth be known, I will kiss my bride “Happy New Year’s” a couple of hours ahead of time.  I am usually asleep when the New Year officially begins, and it won’t be Jack Daniels’ fault.

I hate to be a Grinch, but this is not my finest time of the year. A Grinch or a hermit? A Grinch that is a hermit. The children of Whoville are safe. I will not be coming out of the mountains to steal their presents.

The nights have grown longer, and we are still over a month away from the longest night. I feel like a mushroom and not the ones swimming in brown gravy.  SAD on top of clinical depression and the anxiety that comes with the darkness…exacerbated by the holidays.

Depression and anxiety steal your happiness and while food might be a soothing anodyne it is a placebo. Vast quantities of food and drink only covers the symptoms and does not treat the disease. To add insult to injury, I wake up the next day feeling like the Muffin Man stuffed into a sausage casing or a “blivit” which for the uneducated is ten pounds of poo stuffed into a five-pound bag…yes, more like a blivit. I get to add the guilt of a five-pound weight gain to the anxiety and depression.

No, it is not my finest time…no matter all the blessings I will receive from being around my slightly dysfunctional family at Thanksgiving, my daughter, son-in-law and two wide-eyed grandchildren at Christmas, and the Christmas elf that is my bride…but then she is just as depressed, and anxiety ridden as I am.  No, not my finest time.

Fortunately, I am a functional Grinch and with resolve will overcome my tendency to hideout in a hole somewhere. I will come down out of the foothills of the Blue Ridge and mingle, smile, sing, and of course eat. I will even have fun despite my anxiety that I will not.

The holiday season can be stressful and depressing for people who are not clinically depressed.  For those of us who are, the holiday season is exhausting…just thinking about it is exhausting. Just taking a first step is exhausting and only those who are clinically depressed understand that.

Still, the logical me knows that I am blessed. Better health than I should expect, a loving wife who is crazy enough to make things interesting. A daughter and grandbabies, my brother who is crazy funny and his wife who tolerates him. My mother’s sister and her three daughters and a grandson, the only ties to my youth that I have left. A beautiful place to live. A roof over my head, food on my table, heat…so many things we take for granted that everyone does not get to enjoy.

I’m thankful for the wonderful memories of people now gone. Friends and family who have transitioned to the stars. Friends and family who still have a place at our Thanksgiving table.

I am blessed and thankful.  Now if I can just make it back to those lengthening days of spring and summer.  Happy Thanksgiving to all, depressed, stressed out, or not.

For further Musings or a book or two go to https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR00sd2cXY1IYHpF0I_Di_B0IE6jQEXA4APINANulPSn2I3l9kAFT7wZaZM

Don’s latest literary masterpiece can be purchased in paperback or for download at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR00sd2cXY1IYHpF0I_Di_B0IE6jQEXA4APINANulPSn2I3l9kAFT7wZaZM

“If I had known…”

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“If I had known last March it would be the last time I sat in a restaurant for nearly eight months, I would have ordered dessert.“ Unknown

I don’t know who is responsible for the quote, I just know it wasn’t me. I also know what I didn’t know then.  Despite all of the misinformation floating around, no truer words have been spoken.  When there is a next time, I will order dessert.

I didn’t buy the President’s spiel that COVID-19 would be over in the heat of summer, but I also didn’t buy I would be contemplating a Thanksgiving without friends and family…and then there is Christmas.

None of my aunt’s dressing and butterscotch pies.  None of my brother’s newest culinary creations or a cousin’s broccoli casserole.  None of Bob’s ham or turkey.  No visiting with the girl cousins who are more like sisters. At least I will have my bride’s tomato pies all to myself and will hear no one ask, “What about that election.”

No visit with Ashley, Justin, and the grands.  No tall tales, no hearty laughter, no catching up.  Instead, I’ll burn up the phone lines, I guess., and maybe a Cornish hen on the grill. 

No post dinner nap while pretending to watch the Cowboys take it on the chin again.

Next time and until the Lord takes me home, I will always order dessert.

The date in early March eludes me.  I know it was before my brother’s birthday on the thirteenth because we didn’t celebrate it…or mine…or anyone else’s.   Maybe it was late February….

There have been few celebrations over the past seven months. I guess not being one of the two hundred and sixty some odd fatalities is celebration enough.  For some reason, my thought has a “hurray for me and the hell with everyone else” ring that is not intended.

I was at a BBQ joint with my bride on that day in February or March.  A large pulled pork BBQ sandwich with ‘yaller’ sauce, mayonnaise cabbage slaw, and a couple of orders of deeply fried, battered okra sat before me.

All were washed down with a Damn Yankee, Narragansett beer or three.  Maybe fifteen hundred calories…not counting the calories from cleaning up my bride’s plate…so the dessert was declined.  I will never allow that to happen again.  I will always order dessert. Maybe I’ll eat dessert first.

I’ve learned several things about myself as I’ve sat in my self-imposed isolation wishing for BBQ and dessert…wishing for Aunt Joyce’s dressing…wishing the kids were about….wishing for Thanksgiving celebrations.

I’ve learned I really do like being around my wife, otherwise we would have killed each other by now.  I realize the jury is still out from her perspective…and I’ve hidden all of the weapons just to make sure.

After seven months my hair still hasn’t grown long enough to put into a ponytail.   It is more of a ragged mullet. MacGyver would not covet it. Could be due to the absence of hair I began with.  I am going to keep trying.  Maybe I’ll start an “inverted Mohawk” ponytail/mullet movement for hippies in their seventies.

I have learned boredom is no motivation to getting things done. All those jobs that need to be completed, I can’t even get them started.  I just let more things go. ..more things that need to be done.

I haven’t even found new and more interesting ways to stay bored.  How many reruns of NCIS New Orleans or Star Trek The Next Generation can I watch? Is The Hallmark Channel next?

I’ve found rips to the grocery store to be scary, even double or triple masked up…considering the idiots ignoring masking rules along with the directional arrows.   It’s a political statement? Possibly more dangerous than a simultaneous four-way stop or the new traffic circle built next to Wally World in TR. I do have to eat but I’ll never use the traffic circle.

I’ve learned I’m not the hermit I thought I was.  I find myself chatting with frogs, snakes, turtles, ground squirrels, and birds…even the little snail that somehow found it’s way onto my shower curtain.  I don’t think he is listening. I would talk to my bride but then she might involve me in a conversation where she talks and I listen.

When the wildlife is not around, I talk to myself. Unfortunately, with cold weather ahead, the frogs, turtles, and snakes will be self-isolating and I’ve found I don’t make much sense even to myself.  Just ask the snail on the shower curtain…I think I may have talked him to death.

As I contemplate Thanksgiving, if I am fortunate to sit down at an indoor restaurant table again, I will order dessert….maybe two. 

If you are throwing caution to the wind and visiting family and friends this 2020 Thanksgiving, first of all, be careful, wear your mask and social distance. It is not a political statement, it is an intelligence statement.

Secondly, eat that extra bowl of banana puddin’ or German Chocolate cake.  Put an extra dab of cranberry salad on your turkey sandwich and maybe a wedge of dressing.  Enjoy the sweet potato casserole or pumpkin pie. Do it for me but if you have Bourbon pecan cheesecake…don’t tell me, it might break my heart. 

Happy Thanksgiving.

***

Don Miller writes in a variety of genres. He will release his newest historical novel, Long Ride to Paradise, after Thanksgiving, The tale takes place during the historical period known as Reconstruction.

Don’s authors page can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR1iraxbHHzYu2km-B4PsMVtsrBn9_NwN3OCmVKqxkn3Kq9qOpHWGOUhW9w.

The image is of Bourbon Pecan Cheesecake and I am drooling. Recipe at www.tastykitchen.com

SLEEPING PUPPY DOGS

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I don’t know when God created puppy dogs.  It couldn’t be in the original seven days.  Anything so special would have to have their own special day.  Maybe the eighth day, “and God created puppy dogs.”

I’m watching them sleep.  It’s their sleepy time…something that has increased as they have gotten older.  Twelve their last birthday.  Old in doggy years…even older than me in human years.  They will always be our puppies no matter what age.  Maddie is on her back, paws in motion as she chases her dream rabbit.  Tilly has curled into a not so little ball with a paw warming her nose…as always, her ears are standing at attention.

They amaze me.  Maddie and Tilly are both blind, a problem with the genetics of their litter.  Still, often you would swear they could see…other times they forget they are blind and run into things….  “Oops, knocked your noggin.”  They still know where the persimmon tree is and when a possum is sampling the ripened fruit.  The “girls” lay, patiently waiting, not realizing the possum has exited the tree and has walked away from them.  They bring me little gifts; a mouse, a mole, a snake.  While I appreciate their effort, their time could have been better spent.

Maddie and Tilly have awakened long enough to move outside.  With me following, they zigzag down the narrow path to the rapidly disappearing sunlight.  Stretching out, they allow the beams of the fall sun warm them.  I follow suit and allow the sun and the vision of my puppies to warm me.

At night, Maddie sleeps at the foot of our bed, Tilly beside Linda Gail…until they change…sometimes crawling under the bed to do so.  If there is reincarnation I want to return as one of Linda Gail’s puppies.  Their love for her knows no bounds.  It is infinite…like mine.  When she leaves to run errands, Tilly sometimes heads for the bedroom and lays down beside the bed, waiting until “Mommie” returns.  Maddie will “lay” guard on the front steps…waiting…barking loudly when she returns, somehow knowing the sound Linda Gail’s car makes.  I don’t bark but I am just as happy when she finds her way back to us.

It’s Thanksgiving.  I find it easy to give thanks for the big things.  Linda Gail, the woman of my dreams that has never been a nightmare.  Ashley, and her husband Justin.  The grandbabies, Miller Kate the monkey and Noland the…Noie.  My brother Steve and his wife Rebecca.  Francis, Linda Gail’s stepmother.  The family at home we are going to visit.  Family in Texas, too far to visit this year.  I give thanks for the memories of people no longer able to gather…thanks that they still gather in my mind.  I’m thankful for friends who have stood by me in good times and bad…and thankful there have been more good times than bad.

The big things are easy, I want to give thanks for the little things.  The sunrise through my French doors as I write.  A red-tailed hawk soaring on a thermal, calling to its mate.  Squirrels trying to make their getaway through a chainlink fence with black walnuts from the yard.  Friday coffee with Hawk.  My early morning walks and my return to find Linda Gail puttering in the kitchen.

I give thanks for two puppies, now older and blind…and other puppies no longer with us.  Thanks for the love and smiles you provide.  The warm memories you have bestowed upon us.  We should all take time to think about and give thanks for the big things in our lives.  I hope we all take a moment to consider the little things that provide joy and love with no strings attached…like blind puppy dogs.  I hope everyone has a thankful and joyful Thanksgiving.

In addition to maintaining his blog, Don Miller is a multi-genre author.  If you enjoyed this post, please stop by and follow his author’s page at http://amazon.com/author/cigarman501.  Thanks for dropping by.

NATE

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We served over a hundred and fifty souls, the homeless and poor along with the people who ran the soup kitchen every week and their families. There were smiles, laughs, and expressions of true thankfulness. I believe the smiles made it all worthwhile. As the line trickled to a stop we joined the diners, “breaking bread” and sharing their stories and their experiences.
Aja was unusually quiet. We sat across the table from a thin black man named Nate. A Vietnam War veteran, Nate never got his life together despite the war being over for nearly forty-five years. He had been an eighteen-year-old tunnel rat and by his own admission, “hadn’t amounted to much.” After returning home, Nate had worked at low paying jobs to support his alcoholism until he “had just worn out.” Despite being surrounded by friends this Thanksgiving morning, his glances were furtive, as if someone or life might be sneaking up on him.
“Holy John,” the Methodist minister, disclosed to me Nate lived on family land in a fifty-year-old Airstream resting on flat tires and cement blocks. A cast iron stove “liberated” from someone’s trash heap and vented through a window, both warmed the old travel trailer and provided enough heat to prepare whatever food Nate had available. Like many troubled vets, he sometimes forgot to eat or chose instead to drink his way through the day.
Nate augmented his monthly social security checks with odd jobs done for understanding church members or by selling, for scrap, the aluminum cans he collected walking the country roads around the Airstream. Local folks dropped off bags of aluminum cans under a hand-painted sign whose down-pointing arrow instructed them to “drop cans here.” With no running water or indoor plumbing, he filled recycled milk jugs from a neighbor’s outdoor spigot and took his weekly shower and washed his clothes in the facilities provided in the church’s fellowship hall. Despite his plight, he seemed almost happy with his existence and was more open than many Vietnam veterans I had met.
A gaunt, mahogany face peered out from under an old Detroit Tigers’ baseball cap. Wisps of wiry, gray hair peeked out from under it. He had an ancient face, made older by his predicament. It was cut by deep crevasses that became deeper when he smiled. Nate seemed anything but sad with his self-imposed hardships. In a soft voice, he said, “I do okay. I don’t need much and since I’m drawin’ my social I live like a king.” Pausing to look back somewhere in the past he quoted, “I try to keep my heart open to dreams. As long as there’s a dream I have a life.” With our present military involvements, I wondered how many more of these damaged souls we would produce.
Nate paused, his rheumy eyes gazing intently at Aja before asking, “Little girl…somethin’ is troublin’ you?” Before she could answer he went on, “You young and beautiful. Out here on a Thanksgiving mornin’, you got to have a good heart. People gonna tell you this is the best time of your life. It ain’t. Wonder mo young folk don’t commit suicide hearing that shit. Life always gonna be hard but gets better if you let it. I didn’t and now my time be growin’ short. Nothin’ I can do about it, but you can if you wants to. ‘scuse my language but you need to take life by the balls and twist ‘em if you need to.”
Aja smiled her heart melting smile and said, “Thank you, Nate. I’ll try to remember to twist them just for you.”

This is a fictional composite of many former Vietnam Vets I have known…too many that I have known.  It is also written for Steve, my brother, and Hawk, my friend, who saw a need and acted on it.

Don Miller is a multi-genre writer who, in addition to maintaining a blog, has self-published six books.   His most recent release is the romantic adventure OLIVIA.  Don’s author’s page may be accessed at  http://amazon.com/author/cigarman501.

Thank you for stopping by.