thanksgiving

THANKSGIVING EXPENSE

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At noon on Thanksgiving 1975. Kent and Helen stood in the front door of their Austin Texas home and greeted their Thanksgiving guests, two couples about the same age as themselves. These were the lost souls too young and penurious to have started their own families and too distant from their own parents’ locations to afford trips ‘home’ even though such a trip would be odd as Thanksgiving, that uniquely American celebration, is not celebrated in either New Zealand or the United Kingdom. They crowded inside shaking off their wet clothes and stacking umbrellas in a neat row along the porch.

Everyone seemed to be talking at once. The question they were asking was, “What is going on? It is Thanksgiving for goodness sakes and yet your driveway is full of phone company vehicles -it looks like a convention.”

Kent and Helen looked at each other and smiled. It was one of those smiles which is exhibited to help mitigate anxious embarrassment. Moments when internal grief is either expressed by manifestation of anguish or is supplanted by an expression of ridicule. Helen said, “Come right on in, let’s get comfortable. I’ll fix some drinks then Kent can tell you everything. It’s his story.”

“Well,” Kent began, “as you already know this morning the weather was glorious, but the front bringing this cold rain was forecast to arrive by noon. And, yes, today they were spot on, it arrived as predicted.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. Their words flowed in unison, “You never can tell in Austin. At Thanksgiving or Christmas, the weather might deliver a glorious 80-degree day of sun, a chilly freeze, or a dark overcast cold rainy day as we were now experiencing. You just never know.”

Helen handed out glasses of wine while Kent told his story, “Well, this morning the weather was glorious. Since we finished our Thanksgiving preparations yesterday all we had left to do today was to get the turkey on the oven. So, we decided, or I talked to Helen and got permission.” This comment was greeted by sniggers from Kent’s audience.  “Anyway, we decided that it was okay for me to take advantage of the good weather and plant a Wax Leaf Ligustrum that we bought last weekend for the back corner of the yard. The ground is hard, so I was glad to be using a new sharp spade. About a foot down I encountered a large brown root. It was so big.” Kent demonstrated with his thumb and forefinger. “It ran straight across the planting hole. It had to go! I had great difficulty breaking into it and kept thrusting my spade down with all the force that I could muster.  By the time that it severed I was quite winded. I was surprised to see that the severed root was no root, but some sort of flexible conduit stuffed with a multitude of colored wires.  “Hmm,” I thought, “this must be another piece of abandoned construction debris.”  I pulled on each end as I tried to remove it but without luck. By now the cold front had arrived and my beautiful morning had morphed into a miserable rainy day.  I decided to abandon until the weather cleared and came inside.”

Helen took up the narrative, “Less than an hour later the phone rang. It was the phone company checking if we had service. I told them that everything was fine. They responded that everyone ‘downstream’ from us was not fine for they were without service.  They delicately inquired whether we knew of anything which might explain this anomaly. Helen looked at her audience as she shook her head, “I had to tell them that my husband had severed what looked like an abandoned conduit or cable in our back yard. They thanked me and rang off.”

Kent added, “For a while we continued kidding ourselves that the severed cable was abandoned debris. But not for long, the crews now parked in our driveway arrived faster than an emergency ambulance. Their foreman came to the front door to inform us that I had cut a main trunk putting a whole neighborhood in telephone back-out on Thanksgiving Day when everyone wanted to talk to distant family. He informed that they would immediately set up in our back yard and repair the line.”

The group stood and peered through the rain. They could see a large bright yellow tent set up along the back fence. It glowed from light within. A portable generator hummed from a location on the grass outside. Before the gathering sat down to eat Helen put on her raincoat and protecting herself under an umbrella went out to the crew working on repairing the lines. She offered them hot drinks and food. They greeted her with smiles and high spirits. “It’s okay,” they said, “we will be finished in time to go home to our families for a late dinner. Right now, we are on triple time, the tent keeps us dry.”

As the friends sat down to eat Helen described the crew. “It is quite cozy in the tent. One man is in Kent’s hole making repairs, another sits on a folding chair reading instruction from a manual, the third sits on another folding chair – I’m not sure what his role is. They are in exceedingly good spirits. They said that they are on triple time.”

“You realize,” Kent and Helen’s friends told them, “that the phone company will bill you for this little fiasco.” Someone attempted a laugh, “it will probably be your most expensive Thanksgiving ever.” Helen responded, “What is, is. Let us put it aside and enjoy our time together.” She went on to deftly lead the conversation to other topics.

Kent was quieter than usual and kept letting his mind wander to a mental calculation. He wondered, “What would three men for, say seven hours, on triple time cost. Three times three, times seven that’s sixty-three. But what would their hourly rate with overhead be? Overhead is probably about three-point-five so about twenty-four an hour might be reasonable. Oh no it can’t be so much. $1,500 would mean a second mortgage for Helen and I. (Note $1,500 in 1975 is estimated to be equivalent to $7,260 in 2020).

Kent’s mental calculation was close. The telephone company bill came in at $1,549. Before an unhappy trip to the bank Kent looked up their home insurance policy. He and Helen struggled through the lengthy legalese. It seemed to imply that the Thanksgiving event was a mishap which might be covered. Coverage or no coverage appeared to be a decision left to the discretion of the insurance company’s claims assessor. Kent made a telephone call. The agent listened to Kent’s narrative in silence. “Well,” he said followed by a long pause, “this is not a cut and dried case; but believe it or not I, many years ago, had a similar experience. Your claim is approved.”

Gifts of Thanksgiving

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Keith looked miserable when he shared his sad news with his smoking buddies. He was a charismatic character who generally livened up the group with his jokes and good humor. He could extract something to laugh at from almost any mundane office meeting. The smoker’s group stood in an otherwise unusable corner of the parking garage in the area defined by building management as ‘The Smoking Area’. It was equipped with a dismal-looking park picnic table with attached seating together with a large trash container. The smokers generally didn’t use the bench but stood looking out onto a patch of green weeds growing along the building’s property line. Today even the sunlit highlighted greenery looked forlorn while the rest of the spot with its hard-grey concrete surfaces made a gloomy back-drop much in keeping with Keith’s mood. The smokers inhaled desperately as they tried to draw calm out of the tobacco. Keith, the saddest looking of them all shared his news.

“Another miscarriage!”

The whole office knew his story; how he, and his wife Kitty, had been trying for years to have a child. Each time that she conceived they thought that this pregnancy would be different. But then their joy would be turned to sadness when she miscarried. Of course, they had been to numerous doctors but all the medical profession could tell them was that sometimes these things happen. It wasn’t reassuring. Everyone offered their condolences but no-one had a pat soothing platitude to offer; they had all been used up in response to Kitty’s earlier miscarriages. Keith dolefully told his colleagues, that although he and Kitty were in their late thirties, they were going to see if they could adopt.

Six months later, Keith blissfully announced that Kitty was now into her second trimester and was carrying this baby longer than in any of her previous pregnancies. The staff shared his happy mood. Kitty got to her ninth month. They staged an office baby shower, and when the baby was born all went to the hospital to view the cute baby dressed in blue, who, all agreed, already looked like his Dad.

When Keith returned to work after his paternity leave, he no longer came the smoker’s corner. Standing in the break-room holding a mug of hot coffee he explained that he had given up smoking in thanksgiving for the birth of his son. He received appropriate congratulations while all secretly monitored his actions to see if his vow was serious. He never faltered. Several of the other smokers took inspiration from his action and also gave it up. General office gossip endorsed his action with the additional rationale that it was a wise action as smoking doesn’t go with small children.

Nine months later, Kitty was pregnant again. The miscarriages of the past were in forgotten. Keith was ecstatic. He told the entire office that he, and Kitty had always wanted two children. In due course, a beautiful baby girl was born. After his paternity leave, Keith talked freely about his next act of thanksgiving.

“I want to give my daughter every advantage. I gave up smoking as an act of thankfulness and celebration for the birth of my son. I’ve thought about this long and hard. I know that I have to give up something as an act of thankfulness for my daughter. So, after due thought I am giving up alcohol to acknowledge the blessing of having a daughter.”

He explained that both, he and Kitty were second in the birth-order in their homes and had often felt twinges or resentment that parents become increasingly blasé with each successive child. They, neither of them, wished this to happen to their children. The office gossips discussed this decision of Keith’s. Some rationalized that alcohol also doesn’t belong with responsible parenting, while Keith’s drinking buddies sadly accepted that Keith’s increased home responsibilities would keep him away even if he hadn’t given up booze.

Nine months later, Kitty was pregnant again. Keith’s joy was less effusive as he said that he and Kitty had only wanted two children. However, when he returned to the office, he announced that for this child, his act of self- denial was to give up caffeine. He still frequented the break-room where he took to standing holding a huge mug of iced water and amusing everyone with his wit.

“No more children,” he declared, “We can’t afford three as it is; and besides, I’ve nothing else to give up in thanksgiving!”

The office gossips found it harder to pin an additional rationale onto the ‘no caffeine’ decision. Some observed that three children in diapers meant many sleepless nights, which might make caffeine a morning necessity. Others said that the nocturnal interruptions made anything, which inhibited sleep a ‘no-no” even in the morning.

Life has a way of taking over and about nine months later, Keith announced that Kitty was pregnant with their fourth. He didn’t ask for input on what he should give up in thanksgiving for this child, who he stated absolutely had to be his last. No-one helped him make his decision, although the topic was hotly discussed behind his back. No-one needed to tell him for he knew; of all his children, this child, his last, was to receive the dedication of his most significant act of self-denial.