Giving and thanking, very American traditions
We’ve been learning that Thanksgiving, for certain a celebratory feast, was not the newly arrived Colonists being saved by a shared massive meal with indigenous Indians. Colonists indeed celebrated finally harvesting crops at the first Thanksgiving — the invitation of peaceful Indians to the event is less clear.
A friend and I moving to Boston in the late ’60s spent our first Thanksgiving making Indian Pudding and, while it baked, traveling down to First Encounter Beach on the Cape. For each of these ceremonies of sort, the process vs. the result was pleasurable — the weather November gray, the beach empty, the pudding inedible replaced with the real thing at the Union Oyster House, Boston’s oldest restaurant.
A collaborative feast is a fine image and Thanksgiving is a firm American tradition — kicking off The Holidays that end with the coming of a New Year. My family and I adore The Holidays. My husband will cook a full turkey dinner on Saturday if we have been at my daughter’s on Thanksgiving: he loves the preparation, the smells, the post big dinner turkey sandwiches. There aren’t flags, bunting, Sousa booming bands but none-the-less Thanksgiving is grandly American — includes pies, Macy’s parade, the Westminster Dog Show along with heaps of football, kith and kin together.
Giving and giving thanks are American. Giving, volunteering, doing civic duty, lending a hand is American. A sour fog in recent years has diminished the visibility of the truly American trait of giving to others, by volunteers and by people in helping professions and positions: orderlies, school traffic guards, nurses, doctors, firefighters, police, election workers, big sisters and brothers, researchers, scientists. Thanking, giving thanks for gifts from others: a bounty of love, of time to help build a house, of dropped off meals, a kind word, a door opening as our hands are full or our heart heavy is truly American. Some have tried kicking appreciation off the national stage but thanking others is as natural an Americanism as sports, denim, and cars.
As Thanksgiving 2021 presents itself, an infrastructure bill has passed both Houses of Congress providing long lagging maintenance and upgrades, and good jobs. Thanks Congress for doing your duty. China and the U.S. agree to work jointly on climate — low details, high hopes. Thanks big two for aiming well. Richer countries engage all countries in banishing a pandemic — offering knowledge, recipes and meds. Thanks, let’s win together.
Too easy these days to be woebegone on the U.S. as a nation, as a population. Too easy to let the best of the best be shrouded by discourse rather than unity. Here is to America, Americans — happy, happy giving and thanking.
“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue but the parent of all the other virtues.”
— Cicero
Kathy Herald-Marlowe
Sharon
Clear reason for petitioning candidates
On the front page of the Nov. 11 edition of the Lakeville Journal, in an article by Cynthia Hochswender, you said it was odd that there were so many petitioning candidates in the municipal elections. The reason that there were many petitioning candidates in this past election is not really a mystery.
Instead of a caucus this past year both parties were able to put candidates on the ballot, without a caucus. The Democratic and Republican Town Committees chose who to run due to a change in party rules because of COVID. People who would have had a chance to be placed on the ballot at a caucus were left out of the mix. Hence more people petitioned.
I realize that the headline and first paragraph were to grab our attention but needed to write you anyway.
Barbara Prindle
Sharon
