Thanksgiving 2017

Thanksgiving is a holiday that sticks out in my mind and allows me to easily recall occasions going back for almost as long as I have been alive. It's the diversity of the gatherings and the locales which makes for this remembrance. I have also had many different roles: from being the host to being a guest, to being a stray with no where else to go. It truly has made no difference in my mind, these were all Thanksgivings. It's probably part of the reason I like the Peanuts version of Thanksgiving and the subtle lessons it teaches about being a good guest and not caring if your host is serving jellybeans, popcorn, and buttered toast. Being seated at a table with a turkey on it sure is better than working, which I did one year while I was a restaurateur, and infinitely better than having no place at all to go.

Funniest Thanksgiving was being a guest and the host knowing I was good in the kitchen so for some reason she put green food coloring in the mashed potatoes. I simply smiled and said they were delicious. Still makes me some smile over twenty years later. Most poignant Thanksgiving was on Plum Island in Massachusetts, north of Boston, having dinner with a family I knew nothing about and would never see again. They were working class with young children but had room at the table for two more strays. To me, this will always be my touchstone for the true spirit of Thanksgiving. No hesitation on their part about asking us to join them and no regrets on anyone's part for the pleasant time we spent together.

The Jet Age

It began as a time where men wore suits and ties, and the few women who did fly wore gloves.

In my mind this era reached its architectural zenith with the TWA terminal at JFK. Terminal 5 as it was known had gates close to the street. Years later with the advent of Jumbo Jets, this made centralized ticketing and security checkpoints difficult. "Likened to a bird taking off, the TWA Flight Center at New York’s Kennedy airport comprises four vaulted concrete shells perched lightly on the ground. There are few walls; instead, the exterior is dominated by canted banks of windows."

The TWA terminal at JFK airport has been called an icon of mid-century cool. Now it’s being reincarnated as a hotel.

Let's not forget the architect of this late 1950s project: Eero Saarinen.

Frost On The Pumpkins

The phrase was first given wide use by James Whitcomb Riley,  the "Hoosier Poet." He lived 1846-1916.

I had to look it up because tonight we are expecting frost and we have a pumpkin on our front stoop. I also like the notion it belies, one of autumn and the first feel of winter. No matter that the days are growing shorter, there is still light enough for morning commutes, but not enough for the 5:30 AM walk with the dog. We usually walk with impunity down the middle of the street guided by street lights, with only the rare early morning commuter or late night reveler returning home to demand we share the road.

As hard as the early walk can be it remains my favorite time of day. It's a good moment for planning the day and mulling over the first ideas which pop into my mind. Today I reflected upon the forty years I have been gone from Ridgewood. I count the time from when I left for college in the fall and not from the time our house was sold the following spring. Might just be a fascination with round numbers or the actual realization of being in a new environment.  I come upon this feeling while sitting in the college library reading a book and marveling at the foliage. Yes, I was in a new residence and there was no going back to the old one. It was the same day I started formulating an idea that took me years to articulate: You can go home again, but only for as long as it takes you to remember why you left in the first place.

I make no apologies for holding a contrary view to that of Thomas Wolfe, the author of You Can't Go Home Again.  I can go home each and every time I make a blog post. When the post is done then I am gently reminded, in my own words, as to why I left. It's very straight forward in retrospect. It follows what I was taught in the Ridgewood Public Schools about how important education is to the public good and humanity as a whole.

If this sounds like a lofty ideal, then you are right. We were explicitly taught in school, at home and by the people in our community that we are better together and that is how we attain the most good for the most people. Sadly, there is less emphasis on community these days and more on the gains we ought to achieve as individuals. At least that is what I see, hear, and read about in Ridgewood.

Maybe the recent furor over bullying in Ridgewood represents a watershed, a moment we cannot turn back from and one which certainly nobody wishes a return to. That's how I am hoping it will turn out. It remains to be seen what the outcome will be. With any luck on my next visit home, either literally or figuratively, I'll have some answers and an observation for use in this blog.