One Dog's Writer: November 2020

Thanksgiving 2020

More than any other holiday, I remember my Thanksgivings. Christmases are lost in piles of gifts and ski area openings. Birthdays grew less and less important over the years. But Thanksgivings... They revolved around friends, family, and scrumptious food. Not so in 2020.

This year, folks have hunkered down because of coronavirus. I did, too. In the morning, I read and responded to student work and then headed out for a rainy-day hike (Wandering Whitecap on Thanksgiving). Over the past decade, I've headed to Trenton, Maine to Denny and Jen's summer home. There, my nephew and niece-in-law put on their annual Thanksgiving meal for 30-40 people. It's quite the shindig there on the ocean looking out at Mt. Desert Island.

Thanksgiving 1974, two months after my mother died, is the time the younger Kent boys moved closer to adulthood. The older Kents were away celebrating with their own families. On Thanksgiving eve, my father screamed out in agony about midnight. We called an ambulance and spent much of the night in the hospital. The next day, after visiting dad and learning of his heart issue, I geared up and cooked the turkey for my 18-year-old brother Rob and me (20). Somewhere among stacks of photos, I've got a picture of me holding that perfectly-cooked bird ... prior to that turkey, I'd never cooked anything more than burgers, hot dogs, and boxed mac-n-cheese.

During the 1980s and 1990s, I'd celebrate Thanksgiving with my sister's family. Once the kids were older with families of their own, my sister Barbara, her husband Ken, and I would celebrate together. Once, we ate at the Concord Inn and once at the Ritz in Boston. For the last few years of Barbara's life, the three of us would meet in Florida at their home on a golf course. The Thanksgiving after Barbara died, Ken and I decided on a celebratory Thanksgiving in Florida, just the two of us. As usual, we ate a traditional turkey meal at the club house with a table set for three. You can imagine what sad sacks we turned into that afternoon staring at the third chair (2013 Thanksgiving on this blog).

This Thanksgiving after reading the next few chapters in Dear Edward, working on students' manuscripts, and hiking parts of Whitecap, I made scrambled eggs, bacon, and waffles. Later, I binged on a Netflix series, glanced at football games, and caught up on email. On Friday morning, I received a text from a friend, Abbey Rice, who manages the local exchange student program, serves on everything in the town, and has 6 kids at home.

"Hi friend," she wrote. "Did you have Thanksgiving this year? I’ve got leftovers galore." The care package from Abbey would have fed 4 hungry people.

Here's to another Thanksgiving I won't forget... this one, for all the right reasons.