I did the grump’s version of the traditional Thanksgiving column this week. It includes a thank you from the communist Chinese for the willingness of the poor state of Arkansas to extend socialistic corporate welfare kickbacks to a big Chinese paper company in return for some mill jobs; a thanks to Louisiana for electing a Democratic governor (though it took a whore-mongering Republican and a huge black voter base to get the job done by a 56-44 vote), and a thanks to workers at UAMS who contribute food for Thanksgiving to the many workers at UAMS who don’t make a living wage from the state of Arkansas.
But there’s more to life than politics. When it comes to family, health and an absence of want, I couldn’t be more thankful. If I could change one thing, it would be to have my adult children home.
I still remember my first Thanksgiving apart from family, as a college freshman. I’d been invited to spend it in Atlanta with a college friend. But as we approached the Atlanta airport on the freeway, I said, “You have to drop me off.” I just wasn’t ready to break from family yet. I got a student standby ticket ($50, I think) for flights that wound through Huntsville, Ala., and New Orleans and brought me early Thanksgiving day to the front door of my home in Lake Charles. What a happy greeting I got from surprised mom and dad.
For the record: Today a team of cooks will produce turkey, dressing, sweet potato casserole, creamed onions, a green vegetable of some sort (brussel sprouts?), cranberry sauce, yeast rolls (by me), gravy and pecan and pumpkin pies. There WILL be marshmallows on the sweet potatoes.
We’ll miss Martha and Fritz, but we’ll add a substitute godchild, Shem Ngwira, a first-year student at the Clinton School from Malawi. He’s a fortuitous and sunny legacy of Martha’s work on a farm project in Malawi where Shem’s father works.
And Christmas isn’t far off.