Thanksgiving-then & now

Opinion

November 25, 2009

By JAN WELLS The Cordele Dispatch Wed Nov 25, 2009, 02:22 PM EST

While planning our Thanksgiving menu this year, I pondered the true meaning of the holiday.

All the usual reasons to give thanks popped into my head, and at the top of the list is the fact that the Pilgrims landed safely on that rock at all. Next on the list is something a little closer to the heart. We get to feed our faces…all day long.

Making a mental checklist of the effort involved in preparing my annual celebration, I compared it to the work my grandmother had to do.

Before there was Piggly Wiggly, there were turkey shoots, which meant Grandma got to pluck the feathers and clean out the innards. Eewww. That’s where the bird and I would’ve parted ways.

Luckily, the star of our meal is a mere phone call away, I thought, licking my lips while dialing Meatslangers in Leesburg.

“I’d like to order a nice, juicy smoked turkey breast, please. Oh, and slice it up for me really thin, would ya Hon?”

Grandma raised her own pumpkins; then after scooping the middle part out, she baked up a batch of fresh pies. But not until she wore herself to a frazzle rolling out those flaky crusts. Can you spell “Dedication”?

On the other hand, since my children don’t care much for pie, I called Tommy Macs in Albany and ordered a ten layer chocolate extravaganza.

That beats standing in the kitchen all day with a mixer, don’t you think? Covered in flour. Anyway, I need to save my energy for eatin’.

Now that I think about it, most of my work involves driving from one place to the next picking stuff up. I shouldn’t put myself down, though. It’s not like my oven doesn’t get turned on at all. Ever. Okayyy. The darned thing’s rusted shut.

While doing all this comparing, I mulled over other differences between my life and my grandmother’s.

For example, when nature called, Grandma huffed and puffed her way up the hill to the Johnny House. Then when she got there, she hoped and prayed Grandpa hadn’t used the last of the Sears and Roebuck.

If Grandma wanted a hot bath, she trudged out to the well pump for water. Then she hauled it indoors one pail at the time, heating it on the wood stove to just before scalding.

I’ll tell you, though, if it weren’t for my spa tub, I guess I’d just have to go dirty. For a day or two, anyway.

Using soap she made, Grandma scrubbed clothes on a washboard ’til her knuckles blistered, then hung dresses and shirts and sheets on the line outdoors, hoping it wouldn’t come up a storm.

When they were dry, she sprinkled, starched, and ironed them. Including the sheets.

As a child, I used to watch her tussling with those sheets, trying to get them to do right. And I swore then and there I’d never be caught ironing something big enough to wrap a moose in.

The more I think about it, I’m convinced a person could sleep as well on a wrinkled sheet as a fresh- ironed one. After you rolled around on them for a while, wouldn’t one feel about as good as the other?

Finally, all that deliberating resulted in a new list of what I’m thankful for, including such niceties as indoor plumbing and running water.

Okay, I admit it. I’m a spoiled brat, and Thomas Edison is my hero. Now where’s that electric can opener?

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