My journey this year for Thanksgiving will find Judy and I at home eating turkey and pie without a gathering of family or friends. The virus is disruptive to our flow of annual events; it has changed the shopping, celebrating, traveling patterns for all of us.
I am not thankful for the COVID-19, and 2020 is certainly a year where secular events of the Thanksgiving season have been challenged. In past years, it has been easy to count our material blessings, to enjoy plentiful food, to take the absence of war as the definition of peace, and to ignore social injustices that do not affect us.
What Thanksgiving Day do you remember the most? My memory turns to 1960, when at Texas A&M it was a requirement that all the student body attend the annual Turkey Day football game between UT and A&M, which was held in Austin that year. After the game, the long ride from Austin to west Texas was delayed due to the breakdown of my Aggie buddy’s car. I had written home to ask my Dad to meet me in Anson at the courthouse square and estimated our arrival time to be about midnight. Because of our late start, the sun was coming up over the courthouse when we reached Anson. How thankful I am for my Dad who had waited all night for my arrival. In that day there were no cell phones, and no telephone service on the ranch and I sure was thankful to arrive home.
