Friday, November 25, 2005

Thanksgiving Past

This post’s subtitle could be The Incredible Lateness of Thanking. This is due to a disagreement between the original computer and the new one, which pair I networked on Monday evening using a router. The combined system worked reasonably well ‘til Wednesday afternoon – then started acting up. (Please: all Macintosh users forego the usual criticism.)

Late this afternoon, before our Thanksgiving sit-down, I took the router out of line and plugged one computer into the EarthLink modem…and it connected. So I’m posting this to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving – just a little late in the day.

There were eight for the feast: Barbara and I; Doug and Donna and Maddy (son, daughter-in-law, and grand-daughter respectively); Rose Slavik (mother-in-law); and Elisabeth and Steve Lanier, friends from Galveston, where they own the
DesignWorks gallery on Postoffice Street.

Barbara outdid herself. Plenty of turkey and dressing with gravy, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, sweet peas, cole slaw, rolls. Desserts included Barbara’s traditional pumpkin, pecan, and mince pies – the mince was particularly fine this year. You’ll notice that I have never suffered from my wife’s cooking; rather, the reverse.

The evening ended with a fairly intense discussion of branding, of all things. Steve used to teach Branding for the Arts years ago…so the topic covered everything from non-profits to department stores. Elisabeth won’t set foot in a Wal-Mart, but readily admits to frequenting Target (but shopping is limited on Galveston Island).

I originally intended to dedicate this year’s Thanksgiving post to friend and blog-watcher Susan Kirkland because she lives in North Carolina: oddly, the largest producer of turkeys in the US. However, for everyone who wished us well for this particularly American holiday, and whose e-mails I missed because of computer outages, I return best wishes…a little past due as I said but very warmly meant and sent. I have much to be thankful for, friends and colleagues near and far.

More tomorrow.


Photograph of President Truman receiving a Thanksgiving turkey from members of the Poultry and Egg National Board and other representatives of the turkey industry, outside the White House. Thanks to www.whitehouse.gov.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes, it's true. Were it possible for me to bring myself to kill something, I could walk out the front door, pass the horses in the pasture, pass the little country grocery store, long ago closed, at the crossroads and "git me a cookin bird." But, alas, I lived in Houston far too long and expect some of my food to be packaged frozen in polypropalene film with an ever-so-convenient pop-up timer.