Thanksgivings I Remember, and Don't Remember

It is a beautiful sunny cold clear day in Newberg. My weight training instructor opened up the gym for us this morning so I walked over there, worked out for an hour, and walked home. Now I need to make a pie! Rich is making the sauce for the squash raviolis that we put together last night. We were up until midnight. The first time in years when we haven't had our boys home to cook for us! It was a lot of work. I hope they know how much we have loved and appreciated their cooking all those years!

Past holidays all sort of blur together, maybe because we always did the same thing, or maybe because I'm not terribly fond of holidays, for some reason I have not ever figured out. I don't necessarily remember the different ones, either.

I really don't remember any from my childhood, except that we must have had lots of people because we always had to sit at the kids table. I think sometimes they were at our house and sometimes at other people's houses.

I remember Thanksgiving 1966 because I was at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, and at the last minute got a ride home with Craig Emerson's older sister, who went to Scripps I think. I can't remember her name - Craig was a friend from high school. Mary, I think. She drove a Mustang. We left Claremont the night before and drove straight through, except the part where we ran out of gas in the Siskiyous. Somehow we got help, and made it home. That was fun. My first year away from home and I was a little homesick.

I remember Thanksgiving 1967. I was living in an apartment in Redwood City, California with Deeda Chamberlain. We were cooking in our tiny kitchen, and had to call home for advice. I don't remember who we invited to dinner.

Thanksgiving 1968 was in Portland, and 1969 was in Puerto Rico, which I actually don't remember. Maybe at Jose's house with his roommates? In the haunted house.

Then those years in Portland after that all kind of blur together.

1975 was the first year in Alaska, and although I don't remember particulars, I'm sure we had Thanksgiving dinner at the Teen Home. And 1976, I think we must have cooked at the Main Street house in Ketchikan. Rich, Phyllis, Jude Brown, and me.

The next year, 1977, Rich and I were in Sitka, living in the little tiny house on the beach that we rented from those weird people Scott and Janet. I don't remember if we cooked or went to someone else's house. I think we probably just stayed home. I think Rich was working at the airport restaurant.

1978 was our first year out in the woods, except I was in town and Rich was out there by himself with Annabelle the cat and the pooper dogs. That was when I had the job working for Social Services, and I worked a week on and a week off in town, so flew back and forth. Actually, I may have had the cat in town with me, because after the first few times of leaving her alone with Rich, she was driving him so crazy I had to take her with me. I had a tiny apartment on Creek Street. That was the year that Rich finished our little cabin enough to move in on Thanksgiving, out of the tent. And I had Thanksgiving at Phyllis's house with an odd assortment of Ketchikan people. I was pregnant with Oliver.

Thanksgivings of 1979 and 1980 we spent in our little cabin with Oliver as a baby. 1979 must have been the year we were listening to the Ketchikan radio station and the power was out there, so everyone was fussing about how to cook their dinner with no electricity. We were all toasty and warm and cooking in/on our big wood coookstove. There was an advantage to not ever having electricity because we didn't depend on it. We were feeling very smug and very superior. 1980 I was pregnant with Danny, and we cooked uszki (tiny polish dumplings) from a recipe in the Vegetarian Epicure. I remember that, because that is the name we gave Danny while he was in the womb. (Oliver's name was Hemlock.)

1981 and 1982 were in Ketchikan, at Jack's house, I think. Then back out to the woods with our 2 little boys. I actually have a journal entry about Thanksgiving 1984. Flashback:
Sat. Nov. 24, 1984
Three whales still in the bay.
Went to Hollis & Craig Tuesday morning. Before we left, 5 swans landed on the pond. Two adults and 3 grayish babies. They are enormous. We were afraid our noise would scare them but they stayed even through us starting the outboard. We stopped at Mark & Suzi's and spent the day in Craig. Stormy on Wednesday and wild on Thursday, so we went with Mark & Suzi to Dave & Marilyn's for Thanksgiving. Bob Guest was also there. Carol has been ill due to stress and is now at her parents in Sitka. The kids are with her. They will stay there until the end of the school year, I guess. Paul & Sue came a little later. They had had high tide problems with their boat floating away. Paul went swimming to rescue it. It was a strange party. Marilyn is in to making everyone play games instead of just having conversations, so we ended up playing truth or dare. Only the women had played it before. It was weird. We finally de-antagonized it by putting questions in a basket for people to draw. That worked better. It was funny how obedient people were, or at least appeared to be. I lied on questions that were none of any one's damn business. wonder if anyone else did. We ended up spending the night. Paul and Sue had to go home about 11:30 to catch the tide right, and Bob went home about 2:00, but Mark and Suzi and us stayed, all of us spread out on the living room floor. It had been rainy & stormy and we didn't want to go home in the dark. Next day was foggy and cold and sunny. We went to Mark & Suzi's house and then packed up our stuff and came home. It was starting to blow just a little on the way home. The plastic had blown off Rich's workshop skylight and there was rain all over. Rusty tools, rusty stove, wet boards. He put new plastic up and has had a hot fire going since. It's starting to dry out. More rain yesterday afternoon and today.
While we were gone the chickens laid 10 eggs in 4 days and there were 3 this morning.
Oliver & Danny are both being very testy. Time to read some books about parenting again.

1986 was the year we moved back to Oregon. From then on we had Thanksgiving at my parent's house. A few memorable ones, but mostly they all blur together. I was always annoyed about Thanksgiving because Baba insisted that we have it at her house, and everyone had to bring stuff, but when we got there with our contributions she would fuss because we needed counter, stove and oven space. We played games and yelled about politics. One year Andy Day got drunk and lamented the fact that he could have been a professional baseball player. One year Danny brought two girls. One year Oliver got drunk for the very first time and puked all over. One year we drove to Boise. One year we stayed home and Diane and her boyfriend came with Alex and Kristin. The year that Daddy passed away, 1999, was a sad one. And this year is sad as the first year without Baba. The end of an era really. Now we will start new traditions.

We are going to visit at Sue's for awhile, then go over to Phil & Eloise's for dinner. It will be nice to have Thanksgiving with Rich's relatives for a change. Oliver is alone in DC, which makes me feel sad, but I'm sure he is just fine.

So Happy Thanksgiving and love to all my faithful readers. I love you and miss you.