Reflections on Thanksgiving
Let's start with my septic system: No odors are drifting from the leach lines, no leaks from the tank. At least not today.
The power is on. There are no impending storms, and PG&E has not warned of planned outages.
Water from my well continues to flow. My propane tank is more than half full, so I can heat the house, cook my food and dry my clothes.
Holiday mail, although mostly catalogs and pleas for donations, gets delivered.
And, although I'm going nowhere, I have a serviceable car that can get me there.
“What the heck is this guy babbling about?” you may by now be wondering.
Well, due to COVID, I am alone atop Yankee Hill Road on Thanksgiving Day. My three kids are hundreds and even thousands of miles away. Friends, spooked by the viral spike here and across the nation, don't dare socialize — at least not with me.
So I'm spending the holiday with Lil and Jasmine, my dog and cat. And I'm counting my blessings — which are many.
Over the decades, Thanksgiving here has been busy. During my single years, I invited friends from near and far to Yankee Hill for a feast.
All in our 20s and 30s, we packed into my living room, sitting at folding tables I had borrowed from the fairgrounds for dinner. Football was on TV, salads, side dishes and desserts were made, and a huge turkey was in the oven. Wine and beer flowed, fueling conversations and laughter — which overlapped, intersected and filled the house.
This annual cacophony slowed once I married and we began raising a family. Thanksgiving with young children, as delightful as it was, had its own challenges.
One year we decided to give ourselves a break from cooking and go out to dinner. But a head-bashing back-seat fight among the kids broke out on the way to the restaurant. So, making good on repeated threats, we turned around, came home and had leftover broccoli soup for dinner.
We never again left home for Thanksgiving.
Our children went on to graduate from high school then college, found careers, and now live in New York, LA and Chico. I divorced three years ago. But, until now, the kids have come back to Tuolumne County for the holidays, splitting time between my home and their mom's.
Looking back, Thanksgiving has been a wonderful time in my life. A chance to reunite with family and to reconnect with friends.
But to actually give thanks? Too often that got lost in the late-november avalanche of preparing, cooking, cleaning, catching up, looking ahead to Christmas, and planning trips for the year ahead.
In 2020, not so much. The highlight of my Thanksgiving — as it was for older parents across the nation — was a Zoom call with the kids.
Ben now has a mustache and a Mohawk. He and his fiancé, Rosy, have also brought two kittens to their Brooklyn apartment. Hallie's once-cropped hair has grown long and luxuriant. The LA home she shares with her husband, Jack, looks sunny and inviting. Nick and his girlfriend, Adia, showed off their new Chico home — into which they just moved after jobs had forced them to live apart for many months.
Catching up was much fun. But it took only an hour, thus leaving plenty of time to count blessings in this year of COVID.
So, as you may have noticed nearly 600 words ago, I started with the basics — things most of us take for granted, like a warm home.
Thinking about this brought me back to a Christmas Eve decades ago. We got home at 10:30 p.m. after catching a movie with our young kids. The house was freezing and I checked the propane tank: empty.
We called our provider, although we were sure nobody would be coming out in a truck at nearly midnight on Christmas. But a propane driver did just that, filled our tank, then headed home with a batch of cookies my wife had baked for our holiday savior. These days, such saviors are in demand. The pandemic has impacted all of us. And some of us — small business owners, care-home residents, health workers and, of course, those who have been stricken by or have lost loved ones to the virus — have suffered dire consequences.
The rest of us, although inconvenienced, are getting by. So herewith I continue my 2020 list of blessings:
• That this is not 1918, when the influenza killed 50 million worldwide and 675,000 in the U.S. That pandemic lasted more than two years and coincided with a world war. There were no antiviral drugs and no antibiotics. Hospitals could be dangerous. Things are better now.
• That 21st century medicine is on it: Today's COVID treatments are more effective and vaccines are in the pipeline. There is a light at the end of the tunnel — and I don't think it's a mirage.
• That, pandemic notwithstanding, we Americans voted in record numbers, chose a new president and Congress (as well as county supervisors and district directors locally). And, at least for now, it looks the transition will be smooth.
• That, despite a few lapses in vigilance, I remain virus free (at least as of my last test 10 days ago). And so does the rest of my family.
• That saviors, like that propane truck driver from years ago, are still among us. And their good deeds, especially in this time of need, are more than welcome.
• That, thanks to today’s technology, many of us can work from home and almost all of us can stay in touch with family and friends — which has never been more important.
• That a year from now, I hope and believe, families and friends will once again gather in person to celebrate this traditional American holiday.
And never again, I'm sure, will any of us take a shared Thanksgiving for granted.