Yesterdays and tomorrows, and saying thank you
I know I’ve said this before. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It always has been. It makes me, and I think many of us, feel so American. We can drive and use electricity and speak on the phone. There are simply no mandates against anything on Thanksgiving. And we really don’t have to think about the menu. You know it: turkey, cranberry sauce, some sort of sweet potato dish. But then…
I forgot the vegetarians.
We never had any when I was a kid. There were no exceptions on Thanksgiving. We all ate the same thing and we especially adored the way the talented cooking of all the moms, but never the dads, spread their delectable fragrance through their windows, through the front halls, and to the streets. Delicious was an understatement.
Get The Jewish Standard Newsletter by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up
Oops. I also forgot the gluten-frees, known as celiacs. We never had any of them either when I was a kid. I don’t know where they came from, but this year there will be three in our house. Those delicious menu items will need some modification. Fortunately, our economy has perked up to feature a gigantic spread of gluten-free items at absurd prices in all of our stores. The GFs will not suffer. Only the credit cards will feel the pain!
And indeed, I think of Peter. He’s our youngest child, albeit already well over 50, which says a lot about how old we must be! Years ago, when he was a Jewish day school student, his class spent time working on a kibbutz. He had the unenviable job of working with the turkeys who perished in the lool, the Hebrew term for the turkey coop, who had given their lives so that Israel could offer its citizens two species of schnitzel (neither of them veal!), chicken or turkey. It is rare to see a whole turkey at an Israeli butcher shop, by the way. Well, the young man finally may be weaning himself from the miserable smell of dead turkeys, which haunted him for many years of Thanksgiving feasts, necessitating another main course to supplement the typical roasted toasted turkey. This year, he promises to eat the turkey! Maybe.
Oh. I forgot the pescatarians. You know what they are. They’re the ones who eat fish and all of everything else, but not meat. Turkey is in their forbidden category. It’s sort of meat, although I’m one of those who would like to include all fowl in the pareve section of my kitchen. Since eggs are pareve, why can’t chicken or turkey be? I know I’m going to lose that argument!
Oh. I forgot the dieters. The babies who have no teeth. The babies who do have teeth. The dog who will eat so much that she recycles her meal in the car on the way back to Connecticut. The meal is losing its simplicity.
But you know it, and so do I. There’s something in the air on Thanksgiving Day. No matter the climate warning, there’s always quite a nip if you live in New Jersey. The lovely leaves are off the trees and forming creative, multicolored artistic formations that tell us that winter is en route, not here yet but heading our way.
Thanksgiving always brings me back to Aldine Street, in the heart of Newark’s South Ward. Although it has been many decades since I last spent that special day in that special place, that is still what I dream about when I conjure up Thanksgivings past. The apartment was always overcrowded. The guests, especially Auntie Bessie (she was a former Bostonian, hence the Auntie…I guess) and Uncle Charlie, were always very late. Mom always worried dramatically about the turkey being too dry after sitting in the oven too long. It never was.
The traffic getting to Newark was a nightmare, they would tell us. I know it has not improved since then.
And Weequahic, our alma mater, always lost the football game to Hillside, our heroic players risking their lives and their future medical careers for a game that I never understood and always suffered with, not really caring who won or who lost, only waiting for it to be over so I could, at long last, munch on the turkey wing, my favorite part!
We always ate dinner at a peculiar time, usually around 3 in the afternoon. Was it lunch or supper? Whichever, we were good and hungry from inhaling the very brisk outdoor air with its somehow fragrant scent of rotting leaves blended with the hints of winter, and with not having had anything delicious since the breakfast of Watson’s Bagels, which were the day’s first delicacy. Man! They were good! Don’t get me started on the bagels. You know what I think! Watson’s made the best bagels in the world. I know I’m boring you. But they were what they were. Fabulous. Just right! And if you too grew up in Newark, there’s no chance that you disagree!
So, now flash forward to today, 5785, or 2024 if you prefer, when Thanksgiving Day is well into the planning stage, a mere few weeks away. The cast of characters from the Thanksgiving days long past are long gone and deeply missed. They have joined the perennial cycle of life. We don’t light yahrzeit candles on Thanksgiving, but maybe we should. Do you know what was so special about those moments in time? They were timeless. Each one blended into the next one, a year later indeed, but a year that flew by so all our yesterdays became our tomorrows. And now we get ready to soon celebrate another tomorrow, another day to give thanks. Collectively, we’ve had a hard year, a brutal year. Our people yearn to be thankful but is it even possible? Yes. Hopefully. Maybe. Perhaps when our tables are set and our guests have arrived and Thanksgiving is upon us, good news will be ours to share. Ken yehi ratzon!
Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of eight. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com
comments