All journeys begin with one step. This Across the Fence column began with one story nine years ago. Yes, this column begins the ninth year of this journey of visiting with you each week.
I think it’s fitting that it always falls during Thanksgiving. I realize how lucky I am to have an outlet where I can share my stories with you each week. I’m thankful for the newspapers that run it and I’m thankful for everyone who takes the time to read it each week. Please support your hometown newspaper so they can continue bringing you local news and also Across the Fence.
Thanksgiving has been relegated to the kickoff of Black Friday, and now I hear that major stores are even going to invade the day of Thanksgiving itself. They aren’t even letting the turkey settle and the leftovers be enjoyed before waves of humanity descend on the shopping malls. You won’t find me anywhere near a shopping mall on Thanksgiving or Black Friday. I don’t enjoy crowds. They’ll probably move Black Friday up to Halloween Eve next year.
Thanksgiving certainly has changed since I was young. It was always a busy time of the year because it fell during deer hunting in Wisconsin, and quite often, case weather arrived at the same time. When the heavy, wet fog rolled in, everything else ground to a stop and we headed to the tobacco sheds to take down the tobacco that had been hanging in the shed and curing since it was harvested in the fall. When its raining and foggy, its perfect “case weather.” There’s something about that type of weather this time of year that kicks in the old memory bank, and I have an irresistible urge to crawl up in a tobacco shed and go to work! I can smell the cured tobacco and hear Dad yelling up to us, “Make sure you check the poles so you don’t fall down and kill yourself!” Telling that statement from our father has become a yearly tradition in this column. I’m thankful I don’t have to crawl up in a shed any more. Now I think it would kill me, and it wouldn’t be the fall.
I’m thankful for the memories of those Thanksgivings of the past, when it seemed all the relatives lived within a few miles of each other. My grandmother, Inga Sherpe, lived with us; my mother’s folks, Oscar and Julia Hanson, lived just down the road next to Smith School. I spent eight years there, contrary to popular opinion that it took me twelve years to get through grade school! Most of my uncles, aunts, cousins, and other relatives, lived within a five-mile radius of our farm. Holidays were huge family get-togethers.
Many Thanksgivings were held at my Hanson grandparent’s farm. Remember that old song, “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go, the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh….” Well, we didn’t go to grandmother’s house in a sleigh, we rode in a car, and there was no river to cross or woods to go through! We could see grandmother’s house from our kitchen window. But it was still a wonderful time when we all got together for holidays. I miss those big family gatherings. Now families are spread out from one coast to the other and it’s hard to find a time when everyone can get together. I think those times are gone because we can’t see where half our relatives live just by looking out the windows anymore.
There was never a lack of food at those family gatherings, as anyone with a drop of Norwegian blood running though their veins knows. Grandma Julia cooked the main meal, but everyone else brought something. I shouldn’t speak for everyone… but I ate until I was so full I didn’t even feel good! I try to push myself away from a Thanksgiving table sooner nowadays, but old habits are hard to break.
This year will be special as we enjoy our first Thanksgiving with our grandson, Sean, who will be almost six months old. That’s one more thing to be thankful for. It seems like he was just born. Time seems to go faster and faster all the time.
I’m thankful I was raised in the country, on a farm. When I was young, I didn’t always feel that way. Like so many young people, I couldn’t wait to leave and seek life in the big world outside the confines of the line fence on our farm. A lot of things have changed since those days. I’ve found the old saying, “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy” is very true. At least it’s true in my case. It’s nice to be back home in the country where I belong.
I’m also thankful for all the things that money can’t buy. You won’t find them at a shopping mall on Black Friday. I’ll keep traveling on this journey, visiting with you each week, and keep checking the poles.
Give some thought to the things you’re thankful for as you sit down to that Thanksgiving feast this week… and please, don’t eat until you feel as stuffed as the turkey, and I’ll try my best to do the same!
*
No comments:
Post a Comment