No River, No WoodsA Homebody's Thanksgiving
by Wendel Potter
November 26, 2008
A more popular portrait of an old-fashioned Thanksgiving would picture Grandma at the oven lovingly basting the gigantic turkey while the potatoes boiled in a gargantuan pot on the stove and a half dozen pies warmed on a kitchen windowsill.
Grandpa would be at the front door, cheerfully welcoming his children and grandchildren who were arriving in carloads and scampering up the porch steps in anticipation of the sumptuous celebration.
The coats having been flung willy nilly on Grandma’s and Grandpa’s monstrous featherbed, the party would gather around the big oak table. An appointed prayer leader would say grace with everyone chiming in with an affirmative “Amen”.
Then the feast would be heartily and happily devoured amid bouts of lighthearted chatter.
So very Norman Rockwell.
Well, Norman never met the Potters. Obviously.
Had he typified Thanksgiving by portraying my childhood holidays, the value of his paintings would have been greatly reduced. A gloomy pallor would have been cast over the entire holiday season.
Growing up, we never went over the river or through the woods on Thanksgiving. There was no river. There were no woods.
We never even went to Grandma’s house.
Actually, there was no Grandma’s house. Grandma Mullen lived in the city with one of my aunts. It was a house, a nice house. But it was my aunt’s house. Not Grandma’s.
Grandma Potter resided in a nursing home. She wasn’t well all the years I knew her.
Sadly, there were no Grandpas. By the time I was a year old, both men had gone to their reward or whatever it was they went to.
So I never knew what it was like to call anyone “Grandpa”. To this day, I feel like I’ve missed out on something.
We were holiday homebodies. I do recall one Thanksgiving when my Aunt Madonna and Grandma Mullen came to our house for dinner. And there was the year when we visited my Aunt Lora’s for our Thanksgiving Day meal. Madonna and Grandma and my Aunt Alice and her brood were also there.
Otherwise it was turkey dinner at home for the six of us: my folks, my siblings, and me. When dinner was over, so was the holiday and it was back to business as usual.
Come to think of it, I never even heard stories from either of my parents about Thanksgiving Days of old, when they were young. Maybe there were no eventful celebrations in their childhoods, at least none worthy of recalling in later years.
For many years, after I was married, we juggled two Thanksgiving dinners: one at my parents, then on to my in-laws. We came away more stuffed than the turkey.
But they were pleasant gatherings with family.
My folks, along with my wife’s father, have since passed on to wherever it is my grandpas and grandmas have gone. Our siblings are all separated from us by distance. So we celebrate Thanksgiving here at our house: my wife, our two sons, and my mother-in-law and her husband.
The turkey is tasty and the mashed potatoes fluffy and the salads refreshing. Then there’s my favorite part: the pies! Oh, and let’s not forget football.
It’s a quiet gathering, but there’s still plenty of thanks and blessings.
But I’ll always wonder what it would be like to go over the river and through the woods and have Thanksgiving Dinner at Grandma’s house.
Maybe someday I’ll go wherever it is the rest of them have gone. Maybe my reward will be a turkey dinner with my grandparents.
In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy the festivities, quiet as they may be, with those I love and I’ll be thankful.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Copyright 2008 Wendel James Potter
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