Vintage Thanksgiving

Thanks to my Cousin Maggie for posting these
Vintage Thanksgiving Cards
and thinking of me!

What Uncle Don Wrote:
As time passes all things change. One of the very noticeable changes from my perspective is the celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday. As a young man in high school, college and a few years beyond, Thanksgiving was a HUGE holiday for the “Jack” and Adeline Carriker family. It was almost obligatory to gather at their house in Caney on that particular holiday. Even Christmas took a back seat to Thanksgiving. Time passed, grandchildren grew older, my parents grew older and passed on. Those Thanksgivings became a memory.

As did the other children and grandchildren of “Jack and Adeline,” my wife and I, with OUR kids began our own Thanksgiving celebrations. Anne cooked turkey (usually) for us and other family members or guests. That went on for quite a few years and then it, too, faded into the past. All to be “missed,” but with a sort of bittersweet joy, not sadness.

When I started my morning readings and meditation today, this article was the first thing in my mailbox. I think it is profound enough to share with you. I don’t know who will be where doing what this Thanksgiving. But whatever and wherever, let’s do it in a spirit of being “connected” by family ties. Sometimes those “ties” have to reach across states and continents, but they still bind those together who wish to be bound.

Yep, I’m getting older. But from time to time, age brings flashes of wisdom.
Friend / Grandpa/ Uncle Don Carriker

Thanks Uncle Don!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This photo is actually from Christmas 1953 in Caney, Kansas; but it could just as well be Thanksgiving, for it perfectly captures the way we all remember the annual November celebrations described above by Uncle Don. As my Cousin Marla wrote: Thanksgiving in Caney was the best!

Here we have Grandpa Willard S. "Jack" Carriker getting ready to carve the turkey, surrounded by, from left to right: Aunt Theresa, Uncle Robert, Wanda, June, Uncle Gene, Aunt Elaine, Grandma Adeline Carriker and Carolyn, just like a painting by Norman Rockwell:

And currently gathered in West Lafayette, Indiana, a small (but mighty!) Carriker - McCartney contingent left to right, Sam, Kitti, Ben, Uncle Rich, and Gerry (with Sam and Ben arriving from the East Coast and Gerry's brother Richard flying in from another Continent):

Thanks to my son Ben for this photograph of
"Family Brunching!"

And to my friend Beata for these Thanksgiving thoughts
to conclude the weekend:"The Thanksgiving table is like a small fragment of harvest, sample of history, segment of feeling, unit of family, and illustration of country. Can't escape it or hide, but looking from afar there's the greatest feeling of all -- to be invited to the table to celebrate!"

They Count the Winters

Monday ~ 23 Nov

Tuesday ~ 24 Nov

Wednesday ~ 25 Nov ~ Thanksgiving Eve

The Moon When the Wind Shakes off Leaves

from The Day the World Ended at Little Bighorn:
A Lakota History
by Joseph M. Marshall III
"Another aspect of [Lakota] culture that changed to fit the new Euro - American order was our thirteen - month calendar based on the cycles of the moon. A month was twenty - six to twenty - nine days, and the name for each month was descriptive of a significant environmental event or consequence. . . .

". . . waniyetu yawapi . . . is "counting the winters" or "they count the winters." The more well - known term is winter count. A winter count was a family or community record, a combination of pictures and information committed to memory. At least one piccure was drawn by the keeper of the winter count to represent the most significant event of the year, and the keeper could vividly describe that event and the reason it was chosen as the most significant. From that he could also recall other events that occurred within that given year.

"Waniyetu is "winter," and it was used as the marker for the passage of an entire year because winter was the toughest season of the year. It was a matter of some distinction for an elder to say "Waniyetu masakowin" or "I am seventy winters," because it also meant that he or she had survived that many winters" (188 - 89).

How Do You Say Home

“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy,
and exclaim or murmur or think at some point,
'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'”

Kurt Vonnegut
from A Man Without a Country

British Bird Houses & European Robin

God of the Sparrow
God of the sparrow
God of the whale
God of the swirling stars
How does the creature say Awe
How does the creature say Praise

God of the earthquake
God of the storm
God of the trumpet blast
How does the creature cry Woe
How does the creature cry Save

God of the rainbow
God of the cross
God of the empty grave
How does the creature say Grace
How does the creature say Thanks

God of the hungry
God of the sick
God of the prodigal
How does the creature say Care
How does the creature say Life

God of the neighbor
God of the foe
God of the pruning hook
How does the creature say Love
How does the creature say Peace

God of the ages
God near at hand
God of the loving heart
How do your children say Joy
How do your children say Home
(1983)

by Jaroslav J. Vajda, 1919 – 2008
American hymnist, of Slovak descent
[another favorite: "Now the Silence," 1968]

Araby

Formerly The Jervis Street Hospital
How oddly fitting and ironic to visit Dublin the week before Thanksgiving and find the Jervis Street Hospital site transformed into a glittering urban mall, particular since the shopping bazaar, attended by Joyce's young narrator, was held in aid of this same hospital:

"She asked me if I was going to Araby. I forget whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar, she said; she would love to go. . . . If I go, I said, I will bring you something. . . . The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me."

James Joyce ~"Araby" ~ Dubliners ~ 1914
Some sources even mention Jervis Street Hospital as the actual location of the bazaar, which makes a great story, though to be more accurate it was held in the Royal Dublin Society’s grounds in Ballsbridge.

Dublin ~ where the holiday decorations appear even earlier
than in the United States ~ 15 November 2015!

The Jervis Shopping Centre has everything:
Boots, Marks & Spencer, Tesco . . . even Burger King!

Magical!

"If I go, I will bring you something."

Jervis Street Skyline

A song to charm the toursits: "The Dublin Saunter"

Insensitive

Autumn Leaves: half - green, half - red simultaneously!
Someone asked me the other day if I thought that increased tolerance of public incivility was leading to an increase in individual anger? We're all treated rudely by store clerks and so - called "civil" servants from time to time, if not daily, right? Thinking of impersonal insensitivity reminded me of this 90s single that laments a more intimate version of the same tendency:

Insensitive
How do you cool your lips, after a summer's kiss?
How do you rid the sweat, after the body bliss?
How do you turn your eyes, from the romantic glare?
How do you block the sound of a voice
You'd know anywhere?

Oh, I really should've known
By the time you drove me home
By the vagueness in your eyes, your casual goodbyes
By the chill in your embrace
The expression on your face that told me
Maybe you might have some advice to give
On how to be insensitive
Insensitive
Insensitive

How do you numb your skin, after the warmest touch?
How do you slow your blood, after the body rush?
How do you free your soul, after you've found a friend?
How do you teach your heart it's a crime to fall in love again?

Oh, you probably won't remember me
It's probably ancient history
I'm one of the chosen few
Who went ahead and fell for you
I'm out of vogue, I'm out of touch
I fell too fast, I feel too much
I thought that you might have some advice to give
On how to be insensitive

Oh, I really should've known
By the time you drove me home
By the vagueness in your eyes, your casual goodbyes
By the chill in your embrace
The expression on your face that told me
Maybe you might have some advice to give
On how to be insensitive

~ Jann Arden, Canadian singer - songwriter (b 1962)

Jann Arden sings from the heart;
poet Sharon Olds writes from the gut:

Sex Without Love
How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

~ Sharon Olds, American Poet (b 1942)

Once again, I'm reminded of the narcissistic Little Chap, always focused on himself in Stop the World, I Want to Get Off. At the end, rather than stopping the world, he simply admits that "the only person I ever really loved was me." Could that be the problem? As Coach once advised his daughter Kelly in one of my favorite episodes, being insensitive doesn't always prevent you from getting what you want; it just means that, sometimes, you'll have it all alone.

Longly, Longingly

"His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him,
yearned more longly longingly."

~ James Joyce, Ulysses, 172 - 73
Coming across the above line in Ulysses in 1978, inspired me to attempt a poem on the same gut sensation:

The Ache You Wear

You fall into her arms like crying,
feel her lips in your hair,
soothing like a parent
and something else.

Wooden and broken,
you lean rigidly.
Your forehead rests against breasts
which must be like your own.

With each soft motion,
the ache you wear like a brace
begins to melt, drips
slowly down your back.

Like congestion, it seeps inside,
fills the space between every rib,
then tatters into loose bits
that choke upward and sink within you.

Yearning for a familiarity,
you move toward this woman
and this one comfort
after taking leave of him.

For this time you fall away
from any pain.
Thick rags are floating
now in your stomach.

More visceral imagery
on my current post

~ "Longly, Longingly" ~

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker:
A Fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] Literary Blog of
Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony

Happy Birthday Paul Girl

Peggy Carriker Rosenbluth ~ Paul Girl Era
In honor of my sister's birthday, I took a moment to re-read one of our favorite essays: Paul Girl, by Anna Quindlen. You should too, it will bring a smile to your face, especially if you're old enough to remember at least one appearance of The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show.

Just the other day, Peg and I were asking ourselves, "Are we OLD or WHAT?!" Over the decades, we have gaged our place in history with the query, "Do you remember seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan?" (Gleefully, yes.) Or, even earlier, "Do you remember when JFK was shot?" (Sadly, yes).

In 1985, an unexpected indicator came up at a grad school party when a stranger inquired if I was young? or old? What did he mean? "Well, lets put it this way," he replied, "did you have to learn to use a slide rule in high school?" Despite my eternally youthful appearance (remember, I was a mere 28 years old at the time), when I said "yes," he declared "OLD!" I had to laugh! Not long after that, I saw some high school kids at a fundraising flea market selling old books and lab equipment, including "antique" slide rules; so, I guess the party guy's assessment was not far off the mark.

But getting back to the Beatles and the 60s. Quindlen recalls that you had four choices in 1964 -- you could be "a Paul girl, a John girl, a George girl or a Ringo girl . . .

The girls who picked George as their favorite Beatle were self-contained, serious, with a touch of the wallflower and a bit of the mystic. The ones who chose John were aggressive, irreverent, the smart mouths, the wisecrackers. Ringo got anyone who was really determined to distinguish herself, the kind of girl who would wear wax fangs or weird clothes, who would choose the boy at the back of the band, with the big nose and the strange looks.

Paul got the little ladies - like me. He was cute in a mainstream way, funny in a mainstream way, a public persona not much different from the most popular boys in the class. He was for girls who were traditional, predictable, who played by the rules."

I loved my sister's response when I first shared Quindlen's essay with her twenty years ago: "I was (still am) a 'Beatles Girl.' I like to believe I'm a combination of all of the best parts. A down - to - earth, mystical, irreverent, and wax fangs type of person. But mostly I'm a (Sir) Paul Girl."

And me? Yes, a Paul Girl -- but in a George ("Give Me Love Give Me Peace on Earth"), Ringo ("Thomas the Tank"), John ("Imagine") and Yoko ("Woman is the Nigger of the World") kind of way.

Like the Model Peg Made!

~~~~~~~~~~

P.S.
Previous
Anna Quindlen Posts

Mind the Gap

Take This Quiz!

Do You Think It Is?

Camera, Memory Keeper, Time Machine

Fairy Tale

Your House, Of Course

Homebody Anybody

Homebody Somebody

Play With This

Veterans Eve

I have spent the last few weeks looking through stacks of family papers that have come into my possession over the years, including all the army pension documents of my great - grandfather James Sankey Lindsey (1846 - 1921) who came home sick from the Civil War with untreated measles (contracted by his entire division: Company B, 185th Ohio Infantry) from which he never fully recovered (chronic kidney & digestive ailments).

He spent the remainder of his life petitioning the government for a decent pension in return for his service to the Union at a very young age and was met with resistance at every turn. Shameful! The funds were finally granted in 1912, nine years before his death, in the amount of $15.50 per month (would be approx $373 per month in today's economy). Imagine how much taxpayer $$ was wasted in repeatedly denying his rightful claim instead of granting it outright! And how many people were employed in the wasteful task of telling him -- and doubtless thousands of others Veterans -- "No" instead of "Yes."

That's what I'm going to be thinking about this year on Veterans Day.

Civil War Veteran James Sankey Lindsey & Family ~ c. 1911

My maternal grandfather -- Paul Jones Lindsey -- is the tall,
handsome brother in the middle of the back row.
His brother -- Samuel Gordon Lindsey -- sitting on the front,
right-hand side, beside his mother -- was killed in France in WW I.

Sam, with his mother, my great - grandmother
Sarah Elisabeth Hartman Lindsey ~ c. 1916


My grandfather
Paul Jones Lindsey ~ 1922

Not Used Algebra

Or . . . . maybe you did and you didn't know it!

One day when I was having trouble parallel parking, my little son Ben (age 7 at the time, back in 1997) piped up from the backseat, "Mommy, maybe you just didn't do your math right!"

Now how did he know that parallel parking is a math problem? Of course, it might be geometry rather than algebra! But either way, I think that was the day I realized that Ben was a Boy Genius, though there may have been a few earlier indications!

Also Child Chef!

Lurking and Lingering

Photos above and below
by Missouri Photographer Jay Beets

Ray Bradbury: “It was a small town by a small river and a small lake in a small northern part of a Midwest state. There wasn't so much wilderness around you couldn't see the town. But on the other hand there wasn't so much town you couldn't see and feel and touch and smell the wilderness. The town was full of trees. And dry grass and dead flowers now that autumn was here. And full of fences to walk on and sidewalks to skate on and a large ravine to tumble in and yell across. . . . The ravine, filled with varieties of night sounds, lurkings of black-ink stream and creek, lingerings of autumns that rolled over in fire and bronze and died a thousand years ago" (from The Halloween Tree 3, 15, emphasis added).

Jay and I both agreed that, although Bradbury's story
is set in Illinois, it sure does sound like Kirksville, Missouri,
with our favorites: Thousand Hills Lake & The Chariton River!

Current Post on Kitti's List:
Mr. Pumpkin, Mr. Halloween & Mr. Moundshroud

For more Bradbury, see also
"Godspeed October" & "Day of the Dead"

Extra Hour

i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest . . .
i do not worry if longer nights grow longest . . .
e.e. cummings

Sunset

Moonset

Sunrise
Not by the sun’s arithmetic
or my own
can I make the days
go fast enough.
Yet there are those
who beg God daily
for an extra hour.
I wish for them no solitude,
no time apart from what they love,
and let them have their extra hour.

Rod McKuen (see also)

Last year when I posted this McKuen poem for the time change and wrote, "Yay! for the extra hour," my friend Tim responded, "I pretend every hour of this day is the extra hour! Time to get back to putting up Christmas decorations!" It's true, with Halloween over, the holidays hurtle forward!

In the next poem, try substituting Kooser's opening of "this Valentine's Day," with "this midnight of the extra hour," and suddenly it becomes perfect for the last night of Daylight Savings Time:

For You, Friend

this Valentine's Day, I intend to stand
for as long as I can on a kitchen stool
and hold back the hands of the clock,
so that wherever you are, you may walk
even more lightly in your loveliness;
so that the weak, mid-February sun
(whose chill I will feel from the face
of the clock) cannot in any way
lessen the lights in your hair, and the wind
(whose subtle insistence I will feel
in the minute hand) cannot tighten
the corners of your smile. People
drearily walking the winter streets
will long remember this day:
how they glanced up to see you
there in a storefront window, glorious,
strolling along on the outside of time.

Ted Kooser, from Valentines (see also)

To conclude, how timely that the hour change should come on Halloween Night this year! Or, more precisely, in the early hours of All Saints' Day, leading to this poem for tomorrow:

In the Elegy Season

Haze, char, and the weather of All Souls’:
A giant absence mopes upon the trees:
Leaves cast in casual potpourris
Whisper their scents from pits and cellar-holes.

Or brewed in gulleys, steeped in wells, they spend
In chilly steam their last aromas, yield
From shallow hells a revenance of field
And orchard air. And now the envious mind

Which could not hold the summer in my head
While bounded by that blazing circumstance
Parades these barrens in a golden trance,
Remembering the wealthy season dead,

And by an autumn inspiration makes
A summer all its own. Green boughs arise
Through all the boundless backward of the eyes,
And the soul bathes in warm conceptual lakes.

Less proud than this, my body leans an ear
Past cold and colder weather after wings’
Soft commotion, the sudden race of springs,
The goddess’ tread heard on the dayward stair,

Longs for the brush of the freighted air, for smells
Of grass and cordial lilac, for the sight
Of green leaves building into the light
And azure water hoisting out of wells.

by Richard Wilbur (see also)

Costume Ideas from Days of Yore

My Two Older Sibs
American Gothic ~ 1955

I wasn't born yet so can't recall this particular occasion.
Were these costumes really for Halloween . . .
or perhaps just a summertime Tableau Vivant?

Us Four Little Kids
Trick or Treating in Clover Meadows ~ 1967

I can't decide . . . should this one go in
the "Little Kids" album or the "Halloween" album
or the "Embarrassing Childhood Moments" album?

Yin Yang
College Days ~ 1979

Golden Dome
The Notre Dame Years ~ 1987

Newlyweds ~ 1989

Re - purposing the lobster nose:
Baby Ben's Costume ~ 1991

Out for a Spin

"For when time takes you out for a spin in his car
You'll be hard-pressed to stop him from going too far
And be left by the roadside, for all your good deeds . . ."
~ X.J. Kennedy ~

Halloween Hearse

"I wonder if death will come like a faded star
wrapped in fur and heavily made up,
her skeletal driver silent by the car.
'Darling, get in, we just thought we'd stop -- "
she'll say as he is opening the door
and with a ghoulish grin she pats the seat --
Even though we haven't met before
I've always felt that someday we would meet" " . . .
~ Harold Witt ~
from "Sunset Boulevard"

Cartoon by Trashlands

"Because I could not stop for Death -
He kindly stopped for me . . . "
~ Emily Dickinson ~

MORE FROM THESE POEMS & POETS

on my current post

~ "Stopping For Death" ~

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker:
A Fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] Literary Blog of
Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony

Allergic to Celery? That's Just So Euro!

Halloween Snack: Celery & Carrot Stick Cat

"Celery is among a small group of foods (headed by peanuts) that appear to provoke the most severe allergic reactions; for people with celery allergy, exposure can cause potentially fatal anaphylactic shock. The allergen does not appear to be destroyed at cooking temperatures. Celery root—commonly eaten as celeriac, or put into drinks—is known to contain more allergen than the stalk. Seeds contain the highest levels of allergen content. Exercise-induced anaphylaxis may be exacerbated. An allergic reaction also may be triggered by eating foods that have been processed with machines that have previously processed celery, making avoiding such foods difficult. In contrast with peanut allergy being most prevalent in the US, celery allergy is most prevalent in Central Europe. In the European Union, foods that contain or may contain celery, even in trace amounts, must be clearly marked as such" (Info. from Wikipedia, emphasis added).

After living free of allergies for over fifty years, I seem to have developed the above allergic reaction to both raw celery and raw carrots. This blog post is the result of my quest to figure out why my throat was suddenly and painfully constricting after every celery or carrot stick. An hour or so of googling revealed that there are those who have it much worse, for I came across plenty of cautionary advice to avoid all celery, always checking which products contain dried celery, and so forth.

I, however, haven't noticed a reaction to dried or cooked celery; nor have I known myself to suffer from any of the various tree and plant allergies that often precede the raw celery / carrot allergy. Likewise, the wide range of symptoms such as rashes around the face, tingling and itching of lips and gums have never bothered me. What has happened is the restricted breathing and the horrible feeling that no matter how much air I try to gulp, I am going to keel over and have some kind of heart attack right in the middle of making the spaghetti sauce. In fact, these incidents have occurred more often than not when I was home alone, chopping up celery / carrots for a recipe and sampling a few fresh bites while cooking.

But not anymore.

I know it seems a shame to give up such a healthy low - cal snack, and it feels almost ridiculous or even rude to decline the crudities. On the other hand, if you've experienced that hard knot in your chest and that terrible, scary, helpless feeling in your throat more than once or twice, you won't be the least bit tempted, despite the risk of appearing persnickety or the enticing beauty of the celery heart!

Celery Heart Art

And now a poem -- for there's bound to be a poem about everything, even celery! -- from Ted Kooser's book of Valentines

THE CELERY HEART

CELERY HEARTS: 98 CENTS
—Placard at Hinky Dinky

Surely it misses those long fly balls of light
its leaves once leapt to catch, or longs to run
its roots out into the salty darkness.

What once looked like a Roman fountain
is now a ruin of fallen columns
bedded on ice. Its only consolations are,

at regular intervals, the hiss of mist,
and at times the warm and reassuring squeeze
of passing hand. But better this, by far,

than to be the sullen heart of artichoke,
stripped of its knives and heavy armor
and mummified for eons in a jar of brine.

Ted Kooser (b 1939)
American Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006

Little Black Pantherlet

Why we just had to bring home our little black Pantherlet,
James B. Fuqua!

"The black panther is not a distinct species, but is the common name for melanistic specimens of the genus, most often encountered in leopard and jaguar [and cougar]."

When I learned that instead of a separate species, black panther refers to any of the Big Cats (genus Panthera) whose coloring is all - black, that's when it dawned on me that an all - black house cat could properly be called a Pantherlet! As Christopher Smart writes in one of my favorite poems,
"My Cat Jeoffry":
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

Cherub Pantherlet

We adopted our pantherlet in April 2012 and named him James B. "Fuqua," because our older son Ben would begin his Ph.D. that fall at Duke University in the business school, named after John Brooks Fuqua. The university itself was founded by James Buchanan Duke. So we named our kitten -- who was joining our family just as Ben was leaving for grad school -- after a combination of the two founders, with his "B" standing for Bagheera, after the panther in The Jungle Book.

My friend Cate calls him "Little Duke."
And Ben always calls him "James."

Early Days

Good ~ Luck!
And more to come . . .