I have often written about my late sister Patsy. However, this Thanksgiving I am remembering her late husband Robert. He of the marvelous mashed potatoes. I was trying and failing to explain to Charlie the feat of Robert’s dish. I never watched him do his magic. My mother would hand over the cooked potatoes, the Sunbeam stand mixer, the milk and the butter and leave him alone. I have never made them taste as good.

He was a lovely man, a perfect partner for my sister. He loved to cook and Patsy didn’t. Beyond that,though, his gentle spirit was a great salve to the tensions that could arise on holidays. Alcohol flowed freely at these gatherings, but he remained sober and peaceful.

We live alcohol free now, but I raise a sparkling apple cider toast to Robert today, remembering those melt on the tongue potatoes.

Tomorrow is American Thanksgiving Day, a chance to get together, eat and argue. Political discussions forbidden here this year. We are left with recipe wrangling. Since I am in charge, my opinions rule. Still it is fun to hear opposing ideas of the “right food” for the holiday.

Do you prefer homemade cranberry sauce(no question) or the jellied one in a can which emerges with the lines ringing it?

Should the turkey be stuffed(of course)or left unstuffed. If stuffed, with herb seasoned bread crumbs from Pepperidge Farms(no doubt) or cornbread or oysters?

Should there be petite peas(why ask) or broccoli or French green bean casserole?

Should the potatoes be mashed(how else) or substituted with rice?

Should the pumpkin pie be made from Libby’s canned pumpkin( the only source for the RIGHT recipe) or dolled up with completely unnecessary although Instagram ready extras?

Does it matter that I am alone in loving mincemeat pie? Absolutely not, one coming right up.

Happy Thanksgiving to all dissenting opinion holders!

I am extremely grateful for the collection of photographs my brother had digitized after my mother died. In the above picture, for example, I can see my grandmother(E.G.D.) with her sisters and parents. Her father was the younger brother of the Aunt Lucy I am currently researching. These photos and those like them were taken to preserve a time and place and were quite intentional.

My discomfort comes from a phrase I often hear that “we are doing this trip or this activity to make memories.” The emphasis is placed on the future enjoyment of looking back rather than on the sheer pleasure of the day. We don’t have to go out of our way to “make memories.” We might snap a photo, but we don’t focus on the recording but on the fun. Memories form on their own without the need to be curated.

So much of contemporary social media seems staged like that. Places are visited to take “selfies,” not to be seen. Meals are posted on Instagram to show how wonderful they look. Who knows what they taste like? The image matters , not the experience.

Maybe this is just me being a curmudgeon. Still I remember back in 1970 when a dear friend complained about the newly current word “lifestyle.” “Whatever happened to living a life, she asked. When did we have to think of ourselves as having a style?” I feel the same discomfort about “making memories.”

I had intended to write about my experience as a child of the death of a tree topper on the neighbor’s towering Douglas Fir. We lived surrounded by these giants and, for reasons unknown to me then or now, people regularly brought in men to cut off the tops. There was no equipment, just one man with a chain saw and spiked boots. It looked dangerous and it was. When the neighbor was taking down his tree last week I reassured myself that this time it was a safe operation.

This morning I read the above article in my childhood newspaper. It reported: “They put up a bunch of pulleys and they had an excavator out there to keep the tree from smashing on the ground so that they could save all the branches,” said friend Abby Zumwalt, “I mean, everything was set up as it should be, and it was just kind of a freak accident that the tree like started twisting and just came at her.” The woman survived but with massive injuries to her leg.

It will come as no surprise that the most dangerous job in the United States is log working. I was right to be nervous last week.

In high winds last week a major limb of the neighbor’s tree broke off, grazing another’s garage. (If you look carefully you can see the stub in the middle left) Wisely afraid that another limb would likely hit one of three houses, the neighbors hired a tree service to take the tree down. It is always sad to lose a very old tree which has come to be like an old friend. But I guess trees too have a life span, and this one had reached the end.

Even the cherry picker bucket couldn’t reach high enough, so the man used spikes to climb still higher. Because the limbs were so large they were lowered down on a complicated set of ropes he put in place. It took all day and a crew on the ground to remove the tree, put small branches through a chipper, forklift big sections to a truck and grind the stump. I know it was an expensive, if necessary, process.

The birds and squirrels are scoping out new houses. Fortunately many are available and I expect an abundant number of babies in the spring. Maybe they, like us, need to be shaken out of complacency now and then!(Thoughtful minds might make the connection with living in the United States at the moment.)
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