Thanksgiving Memories

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Growing up in Watertown, my memories of those family feasts are of happy times. The holiday began on Thanksgiving Eve when my mother would start preparing the stuffing. The house would be full of delicious odors as mounds of chopped onions and celery and Jimmy Dean sausage were sautéed,  then mixed with bread crumbs, seasoning, and "secret Irish spices" – which was our joking reference to plain salt and pepper.

Mom would be up at six the next morning, making the final preparations and getting the turkey into the oven. By the time we kids got out of bed, the house was already warm with the aroma of roasting turkey. Store-bought turkeys always came with a bag of bird parts, called "giblets." Mom would boil the giblets in a pan to feed them to the cats, so they could have Thanksgiving too.

I read somewhere that some of our most vivid memories are associated with odor.  To me, there is nothing that says "home" quite like the fragrance of a turkey cooking in the oven. The whole house smells like peace love and harmony.

I have happy memories of those days when we were all young and healthy. My grandparents came to our house for holiday feasts.  They lived in a tiny cottage near Revere Beach. They would drive 17 miles along winding Rte. 16 east to our house on Robbins Road. I still remember one time when they arrived at our house in the old maroon Plymouth sedan. Grandpa was a careful driver and he would frequently get honked-at for moving too slowly for some speed demons. He would respond with colorful curses picked up during his Navy days. We were very amused when we asked my grandmother about the traffic, she remarked, "Well, there sure were a lot of (expletive deleted)s on the road today!" She was of course quoting the words Grandpa had yelled out the window to anyone who honked at him.   

Usually we kids would go to the Watertown-Belmont football game. Dad might walk down with us if the weather was good. After the game we would return home, and the smell of the roasting turkey would hit us as we walked through the door. We had various chores. Mine was to peel and cut the turnip and squash for boiling. While the vegetables were boiling, Mom would serve hors d'oeuvres of cooked shrimp, nuts, celery and olives. For drinks there was always chilled cider and sodas for the young people and plenty of bubbly for the adults.    

Finally the dinner would be served and eight of us would gather around the table. We all stuffed ourselves on roast turkey with mashed potatoes, squash, turnip, green peas, cranberry jelly, dinner rolls. Everyone raved about Mom's gravy. She always said that it was because she used the same water that was used to boil the turnips and onions. I still do not know how mom got everything on the table while still piping hot. We didn't have microwaves back then.

A few years later my daughters would grow-up in Wellesley, but we celebrated Thanksgiving in a very similar manner. Thankfully, when the time came, my wife Judy took on the role of hostess and kept the same cherished recipes for stuffing, gravy, and all the rest: the traditional football game (against Needham), the dinner with all the fixin's – and then the visiting grandparents were our mom and dad.  

A few years ago, the Thanksgiving baton was passed to my eldest daughter, Erica. She has now assumed the role as holiday hostess and will be cooking the turkey this year.   

Now, We are the visiting grandparents. We will be driving over to Natick next Thursday afternoon. If you are going that way and you see a Dodge Caravan that seems to be going too slowly, please refrain from honking. I am just being a careful driver. It runs in the family.

A Non Pundit View

It seems every self-styled pundit is opinionating about the events in the world, I might as well toss my two cents into the pot.   

I must warn you in advance that I do not think of myself as a "pundit".  The amount of research and erudition for such a title is way beyond my intellectual energy. 

Plus, my aptitude for evangelism is nonexistent.

Most of the people I know who write blogs seem to think that they are possessed with a keener insight than the average citizen.  In fact, they often refer to those who might disagree with them as "low information voters"*.     

In addition, they feel a spiritual "calling" to try to bring the less-informed among us up-to-speed.  In case you have not been paying attention, the world is rapidly turning to shit.  And the single individual who is most responsible for the erosion of American values and the American Way of Life and the American Dream is none other than Barack Hussein Obama.  (Note that they like to remind you that his middle name is Hussein, in case you forgot that he is secretly a Muslim and a fascist).

After perusing many of these blogs, I find it difficult to believe that one person could be so flawed:
He takes too much vacation,  doesn't pay attention at security briefings, is considered a joke by other world leaders and much of the voting public,  squandered the treasury surplus that he inherited from his predecessor,  wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of lives on unnecessary military adventure... --oops forgive me, I was reading the Bush rap sheet by mistake.  

Sorry, I should have been sticking to the point.  Now where was I ,
....Fakes his birth certificate, hangs around with terrorists, hates white people, plays too much golf, can't speak without a teleprompter, was an affirmative action student, never published a piece in the Harvard law review, voted "present" as a Senator from Illinois, has no experience as an administration or manager, bows to foreign royalty,  lies to congress and the American people every day, is on the wrong side of any issue that you can think of (Climate change, pipeline construction, minimum wage, immigration, border control, taxation and income inequality, health care, and especially foreign policy.)

The aforementioned pundits seem to feel that cherry picking articles from fringe media  is sufficient research.  They have no problem articulating the things that should have been done. 

You are probably thinking, "Monday morning quarterbacking is no substitute for intelligent, balanced research."  But it's not as simple as that.  The psychological condition of many pundits is known as "confirmation bias. **"     

None of us is immune to confirmation bias.  It is natural for us to be attracted to people and ideas that agree with our strongly-held beliefs.  We literally tune-in to the programs and voices that preach the gospel we want to hear.  We tend to tune-out information that casts doubt on our sacred beliefs.   

It is nearly impossible for a lay person to decide which group of scientists is telling the truth when they talk about global warming.  The "evidence " is buried deep in the arcane source materials which ordinary people cannot understand - much less evaluate.  The Scientific majority say "Human activity is tied to Global Warming."  A small group of dissidents claim that the earth's temp has not risen in ten years. 

Even a casual student of history recognizes that over the eons scientific consensus has been wrong more that it has been right, so we tend to equate "consensus" with "opinion." 

Evangelists promote their beliefs as facts.  But we have to keep in mind that "fact" is just a word.  A fact is often just an opinion in disguise. 

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*(Anyone who voted for Obama)  

**confirmation bias refers to the tendency to selectively search for and consider information that confirms one's beliefs.

election aftermath

The results  from yesterday's election are in.   Congratulations if your candidate won.

Most of us voters are just glad that it is over.  Now we can eat dinner without the phone ringing with yet another robocall message.  We will have less unwanted junk mail in our snail mailboxes (we have already blocked the senders of unwanted email).
We can watch a favorite program on TV without being besieged at every commercial break with attack ads showing the evil tendencies of the opponent.

Honestly, by the end of the election season, we have heard so much negative information (half-truths, innuendos, outright distortions) about every candidate that we don't want to vote for anyone.

Anyone with common sense realizes that the amount of money being spent in politics has effectively made a mockery out of the fundamental belief that you get the government that you (the majority) vote for.

I thought the Daily Show bit summarized it nicely:  click here for clip

I saw an interesting  video clip the other day, but can't find it at the moment.  It presented an argument that because of the influence of money, 10-12% of the richest people actually decide who gets nominated (funded), and subsequently who gets the most positive coverage -- resulting in election.  The little people get virtually no say in who runs the country.

Voting is merely a "feel-good" activity to give us the illusion that we have the government elected by the majority.  In reality it is just the opposite.

Pardon me if I sound cynical or pessimistic as I contemplate what the elections will accomplish.
But, I am not anticipating any of the major problems we face to be solved by the election of new rascals.   History has shown that money corrupts, and elected officials who were bought and paid for are not going to slap the hand that feeds.