NOVEMBER 24, 2022 – Turkey Day has always been my favorite holiday of the year. As a kid, I savored the story of the Pilgrims and Wampanoags sitting down at a bunch of picnic tables against a backdrop of fall foliage and breaking acorn-squash-bread together in peace and amity.
At the center of the whole scene, of course, was Tom Turkey, which fed our kindergarten art project. I remember surveying the parade of our “hand” turkeys that Miss Squires had taped to the same classroom wall from which hung “Old Glory.” Each of the turkeys bore the artist’s crude attempt at a (printed) signature.
I remember passing quiet judgment on the “artwork.” I was struck by how much the turkeys reflected the characteristics of my classmates. Some of the turkeys looked as reckless as the kids who’d drawn them. Other birds were the paragon of color and refinement—like the smart girls who’d handed them in. (I’d already discerned that the smartest kids in the class happened to be girls, but perhaps I was prejudiced by my older sisters, who had well established themselves as “fine turkey artists.”) My turkey was somewhere in the middle of the gaggle, and it bugged me that mine wasn’t up to the standards set by the leaders. This reaction induced me to practice drawing better turkeys at home—again, my sisters’ work serving as excellent examples.
I remember in third grade Mrs. Lundquist asking us one by one up and down our rows (a) what our family plans were for Thanksgiving, and (b) how big our turkeys were. I felt a bit left out since nearly every kid, so it seemed, had multiple aunts and uncles and lots of cousins. My sisters and I had zero aunts, zero first cousins and one bachelor uncle, who lived a million miles away.
In retrospect, I’m amazed by how many third graders knew the size of their aunt’s, mother’s, or grandmother’s turkey. Most of the birds were in the 20-something-pound range.
Our family’s tradition at that stage of my young life was to drive down to the rambling home of our grandparents Nilsson near the University campus. My grandmother, the Swedish culinary marvel, put on the finest Thanksgiving meal you could imagine. On that “third grade” Thanksgiving of 1962, I was dying to ask her Mrs. Lundquist’s question—how big was our turkey? As Ga (our grandmother’s nickname) opened the oven door to inspect the progress of her work, I posed the question. She answered with her characteristic gentle, refined kindness, which she tailored to each of us. “It’s a verdy big turkey, Erdic,” she said with her musical, Swedish lilt. “It’s twelf pounds!”
I remember the disappointment I felt. Only 12 pounds? I was relieved I hadn’t known that the day before when the question had been posed in class. My truthful, “I don’t know,” had saved me considerable embarrassment.
On this day of national thanksgiving, I savor those memories of my childhood as I now relish the homemade cranberry sauce my wife always makes for the meal. But what I feast upon is the fare for which I’m most grateful—this year’s renewal of my lease on life and all the people who’ve carried me through and fed me with a cornucopia of empathy, encouragement and inspiration: my healthcare providers, my family, my friends—the very best that a human being with the highest standards could imagine. For all of this, I have gratitude beyond expression.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
