THANKSGIVING GIVERS GIVE MORE THAN THEY KNOW

Thanksgiving givers showed up after I moved to Portland, Oregon in 1980.

I was gone a short time to learn how people get engaged and unengaged.

The lesson I learned sunk in while I trolled Brooklyn, NY.

Then it was time to come back.

Unfortunately, my folks had finalized their divorce and both remarried while I was gone.

The good part was deciding where to go for Thanksgiving.

I figured divorce meant a difficult Christmas from there on out, but Thanksgiving was an equal challenge.

Thanksgiving givers stepped up when I decided to skip the whole thing and stay home, which was my studio apartment cave on the top floor of a NW Lovejoy building.

I had a nice view of the parking lot, which has since turned into another living space. Even Payola’s Market on the corner of NW 21st and Lovejoy changed.

Now it’s a Starbucks.

Thanksgiving has changed, too.

Giving Thanks Together, But Not In The Same Place

My Thanksgiving givers were the neighbors who had decided to stay in over the holidays.

A social group, they had already organized a progressive dinner from one apartment to the next for drinks, appetizers, main course, and desert.

Instead of family rejects wondering what we’d done wrong, we were young adults in the big city doing a city thing.

There was something special about my first Thanksgiving in Portland. I was on a roll.

I broke up with a great girl on the east coast, moped around, then came back to break up with another great girl.

Were they really great? Yes, and everyone agreed. Was I great? Not for them I wasn’t.

One of them liked skeevy dirtbags, the other one liked more ‘mature’ men. I wasn’t dirtbag enough, or daddy enough.

But I was thankful enough for the Thanksgiving givers in my building.

2

The next year my girlfriend and I made the whole table of Thanksgiving dinner and set the table on Sauvie Island outside Portland on Hwy 30.

Everything was cold, but the memory is still warm. It looked like centerfold on the Tres Hombres album from ZZ Top.

Thanksgiving changed again a few years later: I got married.

Once you get married you carry the holiday traditions like a sacred trust. You must not miss any chance of family celebration. Ever!

My wife had met my family.

What’s worse for spending Thanksgiving alone than getting married? Getting married and having kids.

Then it’s the full burden of traveling for Thanksgiving. She came from LA, so we were part of that airport mob more than once.

We usually covered the distance over a two day drive down I-5 and back.

My wife coordinated with three sets of in-laws including her folks, my dad and his wife, and my mom and her husband.

Years later I explained to my kids why keeping parents and grandparents to a manageable level meant something to me. I grew up knowing I had three grandpas and nine or more grandmas through marriage.

I met a few of them.

My goal was to be the boring dad, not the one with a new car and new wife every few years.

Thanksgiving Givers So Far

Over the years, married Thanksgiving has been eventful. We’ve had housefuls and gone to other houses.

My mother in-law was a huge fan and displayed her incredible cooking skills.

Judy was born and raised in a small English town in the south and went to college to get a Domestic Science degree. She taught Home-Ec.

Not only did she come from a country with manners, she’s an academic manners expert.

One year we invited a new couple to the group. They were Vegans.

What do vegans do for Thanksgiving? What do we do?

One of us had a panic attack and canceled the whole thing; the other one picked up the slack, uncanceled, making the whole dinner from scratch. (The one with Sauvie Island experience.)

It was more fun than expected.

Another year the dishwasher broke the day before the biggest show of ‘special’ plates, forks and knives.

In other words, every plate, pot, pan, tray, and serving dish in the house was up for a wash.

And, like days of old, we all pitched in like no dishwasher was no problem. And it wasn’t.

2

This year the Thanksgiving givers are my kids’ in-laws.

Two kids equals two Thanksgiving dinners.

Last night was the first Thanksgiving with the newlyweds and her family.

It was a house full of grandparents, parents, and a baby with a big sister.

In other words, all of humanity was there and humanity is fine, regardless of what you might hear about it.

I even got a short nap in granddad-style.

Tomorrow night is big boy’s in-laws with a similar lineup, except for the Granddad status.

For this one, I am the real deal: Granddad standing tall. On tiptoes if needed.

They are all Thanksgiving givers who know the drill.

What might that drill be for Portland baby boomers?

Okay, boomer needs to engage in the joy, in the festive nature of the day.

In other words, be thankful. Don’t mourn who isn’t present if you can avoid it. Be thankful instead.

Not over-gushing thankful like you just woke up from a heart transplant, but thankful in a quiet way, something you can share with the oldest in the room, and the youngest.

Thanksgiving givers know how to do this.

Do you?