Thanksgiving Dulcimer, Black Mountain, NC
Why do you sigh
on this day meant for singing –
a time for the feast of
the heart and the soul?
Remember the songs
we should all be a-humming,
the ones for all Pilgrims,
not weary but bold.
Why is your body
so trembling in sorrow –
your echoing strings
sending chills to the spine?
And how did the vision
of log cabin morrows
transcend all the days
of laughter and shine?
For just this one moment,
in this simple setting,
forgetting all sadness,
loss and despair,
return to the music of
young maidens dancing,
with pauses for laughter
and silence for prayer.
– Charles Brady
(Well, I’ve let the belt out one notch, and I have made a dent in the left-over dressing. And there is still a lot of cranberry sauce and cranberry relish in the fridge behind the apple pie (Although Lee makes apple pies every year for the family gathering, the crowd always goes first for her special pumpkin pies, leaving little room for crossover desserts.) All this goes to say that another Thanksgiving family gathering has bitten the dust. All over the country and in many nations far from home, Americans have celebrated, have over-indulged, and have shared the latest with each other. I wrote the following last week)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I’m of an age when the seasons don’t just creep up or run up on me; they come galloping up, one to the next. With no help from me, it is now Thanksgiving again and, although the last one was just ten minutes ago, I have to deal with THIS one.
What am I saying? Thanksgiving is just about the most perfect of gifts to ourselves. We don’t have to buy presents or take the little ones to the mall to have them sit in Santa’s lap and scream at the sight. We don’t have to return the bad choices of family members who still think your pants size is 28 X 32 and that you love those cardboard, imitation something, bedroom slippers made in Bangladesh.
But I don’t have to tell you about the season of gathering and sharing, even though
different families most certainly differ in the way they celebrate.
For the past forty-three years my family out west have celebrated at the home of my wife’s sister and her husband in Mill Valley, California. We have all been close since the late 1950’s when Lee’s sister, right out of high school and a year of college, came, for the adventure and travel to live with us in Germany where I was on a three year deployment with Lee and our three very young children. Linda got a job at the Headquarters where I was assigned and Lee worked as a civilian. Also working in the office with me was a young Corporal from the East Coast. I was the Interpreter when he and Linda were married in Stuttgart a year later.
Linda and Peter have graciously hosted our California Family Thanksgiving over the years, sometimes with way too many eaters and sometimes with almost too many! Everyone brings side dishes and desserts and we will have the turkey and dozen other dishes prepared by Linda. Since we represent different coasts and north and south, we always have our own moms’ favorite dressing and gravy, pies and pearl onions. For years we had to have both pumpkin AND sweet potato pies!
After eating, we will hand out flashlights and coats for those who forgot to bring theirs, and we will walk as a more or less organized mob up the twisting, seldom-traveled road toward the “Sleeping Lady” (Mount Tam.).
When we return we are rewarded with Pumpkin and Apple pie. Sometimes, one of the younger ladies will bring in a ringer – a favorite mincemeat pie or such.
At the beginning of our Thanksgiving feast, different ones will offer blessings, sometimes written out and sometimes off the cuff. This year, we will again ask special favors for our American Service Members who are away from home, especially those in hostile locations. Adults present know the feelings of those times when we cannot see and touch loved ones and share a meal with them.
And that takes me to a few Thanksgiving Dinners served at Army Mess Halls. You should know that, exept in rare locations, EVERY service member not able to be home this year, will share a “Traditional” Thanksgiving Dinner, no matter where he or she is stationed, including those on submarines at sea and those at the North or South Poles.
I found in my twenty – two years in the Army, from private on up, that Military Cooks go all out to serve the very best holiday meals possible. They take great pride in their important tasks. Military spouses and children are always honored guests in Army Mess Halls on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the cooks go all out to make sure the families know they are welcome. Kids are treated like kids and so they get lots of desserts and lots of hard candy!
As a young soldier, I enjoyed my first Holiday Mess Hall thanksgiving in 1949. The next Thanksgiving Day, however was a different story, but I DID get that special dinner! Here are the specifics:
In September1950, after a quick deployment from Texas, my Army Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion arrived off the Korean coast just in time to get attached to the First Marine Division for the Inchon invasion. We fought and stayed with the Marines through Seoul and up the South Korean peninsula until we were called back and loaded on ships again for the invasion at Wonsan, in North Korea.
With the Marines we served as some of their ground support as they advanced on up to where US Forces met that million man Chinese Army and started back down and out. In November my Tank (a light tank with twin forty millimeter cannons in an open turret, was directed into a position on an icy mountain top just north of Hamhung, North Korea. We were a six-man crew alone up there and IT WAS COLD.
Since Inchon, we had been eating C Rations, had not changed our fatigue clothing, and (when we could) we slept in the same mountain type sleeping bag!
We were ripe!
As we were on constant alert, our duty required at least two of us to be on duty for two hours – day and night – and off four hours. We slept little and froze a lot, but we had one REAL break that month!
Toward the end of November, as retreating US Forces were going past to evacuate the North, we got a radio message from our battalion commander – He had arranged for our cooks to get together and set up at a central location in Hamhung to serve us a real Thanksgiving Dinner! We were to be picked up by his driver, two at a time, and taken down the mountain to eat and return.
And it was grand! Through the hazards of supply, our cooks had gotten their canned turkeys and trimmings and made up the rest. They served us turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce and mashed (Dehydrated) potatoes and – best treat of all – LOTS OF REAL COFFEE!. We also got two helpings of pumpkin pie and a pocket full of hard candies.
Riding back up that mountain in the gloom of a hard winter day was a mournful experience, but I will never forget any of it – especially that coffee in my own seldom-used, folding aluminum coffee cup!
Shortly after Thanksgiving, we were ordered down from our mountain to take up defensive positons on the Hungnam (NOT Hamhung) Harbor – right on the docks, where all American and other UN troops were being loaded for transport back to South Korea.
My Christmas story at that VERY SAME LOCATION a month later….in that harbor and on Christmas Day…. will be written at another time.
