When I awake, the first thing I do in the morning is get the dog out side to do his thing. If I’m not fast enough, he’ll find the “good” carpet and do it on that. I’ll stand there in the backyard, still very drowsy, swaying somewhat on my feet as my balance hasn’t returned yet. For me, doing any task two minutes after waking up is pathetic. I have terrible coordination, but that’s another story.
For several mornings I’ve been noticing the grey skies, the leaves piling up on the ground and that enveloping silence as the song birds have fled south. I stood there a few days ago, looking around and whispered to myself, ”November…a perfect November.”
To tell the truth, I like November.
November meant this to me growing up. Tan and gray looking woods, the first stinging cold nights and Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving in our family was a small affair as our family was small to begin with. Also, there was this weird Edwardian air to our family and that holiday. We weren’t boisterous nor garrulous. We seemed almost “proper” when we sat at the table. Then again, the tablecloths came out and the good plates were used. Nothing was told to us kids to shut up and be on our best manners. It was expected.
As you grow and move from just the experience of your family to others, you can be wide eyed at how different others are. I can remember a Thanksgiving while around an Italian family. They seemed to be SHOUTING all the time and had relatives in the thousands stuffed into a small house. These people are nuts I can remember thinking.
Other Thanksgivings showed me how some families had NO problem rekindling a family feud over some grievance that occurred fifth-teen years ago. I once saw one where the brothers started whomping one another and then spilling out into the driveway to continue it. The only injuries they sustained was from falling down hard onto the concrete and not from any fists.
A few Thanksgivings had me drunker than a monkey, eating too much and then collapsing on the couch or even the floor to sleep it all off. But that was back then when I could drink warm, straight Popov vodka. It helps to be a teen with a liver that works very, very well.
One ceremony I make sure to do is find on the radio, Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant Massacree. That’s how you finish out Thanksgiving and cap off a November.
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