Here It Comes, Again

By G. E. Shuman

     Well, here it comes, again. For many of you the fact that last Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2014 brought about a foot of wet snow to the New England states, including ours, was a good thing. For you the snow is beautiful, as it hangs from the branches of the hillside trees. It just brightens your day to see the white stuff coming down out of the sky, and, as Robert Frost said, “filling up the woods with snow.” Also, for you who enjoy Vermont winters, that first storm is a harbinger of soon to be experienced snow machine rides, ski trips, and snowman making afternoons with the kids. You see winter as a wonderland of sunshine sparkling off from frosted evergreen bows, and chestnuts roasting by an open fire.

     I, truly, wish I could share your joy. The truth is, I find very little that I like about this time of year, and that is probably not good, as someone who has spent every one of the past sixty winters in the north. (How dumb is that?) To me, winter is just a very dangerous time up here. If you have children, and if those children have advanced to the age of driving around in the wonderful stuff of winter, you might know how I feel, especially if they are not very experienced drivers. I am a Christian guy, and, truly, always try my best to trust God for the safety of my family members... but winter is a tough time for me to do that. It is true that He has always kept us, not necessarily from any accident, but from any resulting in injury. In fact, just a month ago our twenty year old son was forced off the highway, (at highway speeds), and into the median, by another car who didn't see him in the passing lane. Andrew succeeded in doing damage to his car as he mowed down several mileage markers, but also got the car back on the highway, and drove home safely. I believe that God was responsible for that night not resulting in something much worse than a banged up car. Still, I am a human father, and will always be concerned for my kids as they drive. Andrew's recent brush with being hurt, or worse, was all without that added danger of snow. I know that in the days and evenings to come my wife, my married-with-families kids, and my unmarried ones will be out there, facing ice, snow and cold, until the arrival of spring. I do need to remember that protection Andrew experienced a month ago, and attempt to have the faith that I have always told my family to have. See how much fun winter is for me?

     You may agree with me about winter, or you may not. Maybe it's just my age beginning to creep up on me, and the fact that my hair is now close to the color of the snow on the roof, but I do not welcome the cold, dangerous, pavement-icing season we are now entering. If you are a 'winter person,' you just keep on loving your time in the snow. I will keep on checking the weather and dreading bouts with my shovel and finicky snow blower. I, truly, don't want to be a stick-in-the-mud. I would just rather be stuck in the mud than in a snowbank. And, if you could say a prayer for my family, I'll say one for yours.

Thoughts of Thanksgiving, …and a great recipe.

By G. E. Shuman

Thanksgiving, in a word, and as a word, is a mouthful. The long, feasting-table-length wish of “Happy Thanksgiving!” fills the air with syllables, and the mind with fond memories of food and family. The very thought of Thanksgiving Day, to many of us, brings an anticipation of aromas wafting from warm, turkey-scented kitchens. Gravy-drenched garlic potatoes, steamy stuffing, pickles and pies all come to mind when we ponder this casual and cozy, butter-basted, late November holiday. It’s the day of pilgrims, Indians, and cornucopias that we learned of as young children; the day with the name which even begins with the ‘turkey’ letter. Yum, yum!

This coming holiday will be the forty-third Thanksgiving Day Lorna and I have celebrated together as husband and wife. Some recent Thanksgivings have been spent at the home of one or another of our adult children, and those times are wonderful. Still, over the years, most of these family feasts have taken place right here in our old Barre, Vermont home.

To Lorna and to me there has always been something special about such times in this solid, well-aged place. Home is a house where your memories reside, and that is likely what makes this one so special to us. The sturdy, tall, thick-walled, elderly rooms of this house nearly echo with sounds of holidays past; of hours spent here, sheltered from the cold world by those big walls, and by big love. Here we have cooked dozens of family-sized Thanksgiving turkeys together, and have stuffed them all with stuffing of only slightly varying stuff. We have also stuffed celery and pumpkins here, have opened scores of cans of cranberry sauce and peeled hundreds of potatoes, all for fleeting, passing, Thanksgiving Day dinners. I enjoy the notion that even earlier families who occupied this old home had their own holidays filled with scampering children and sumptuous kitchen scents. Their Thanksgivings were certainly graced with laughter and love, smiles and silliness, and grand kids and gratitude, as are ours. At least, I hope that they were.

Over these years our own Thanksgiving menus and recipes have changed little, but, with the passing of time, the company around the table has, necessarily, changed greatly. Years ago grandparents came to help us celebrate our first years together. Years later, our parents and cousins occasionally shared our feast with us and our then-young children. In more recent Novembers, people who look somewhat like those small children we used to have come and bring children of their own to sit around that same old table. How wonderful, and yet how strange that we have now become the grandparents; the elders at the feast. Such positions hold great joy, but also at least a bit of trepidation for me. I know in my heart that, as our family grows ever-greater in number, such future family times must be growing ever-fewer for Lorna and me. Maybe that is okay. We are here together, again this year, and that is enough for now. We do our best to live by faith, and will anxiously await and always enjoy as many family Thanksgivings as God allows us to share.

Years ago we, somehow, found a recipe that I wish you would try this year. It has filled us to overflowing, time and again, and has been the very basis of many nearly perfect Thanksgivings for us. To follow the recipe, you simply turn this holiday's name around a bit, and remember to make Thanks-giving Day a day of consciously, gratefully, giving thanks.