Thanksgiving 1964

 

Take a moment and think back to your childhood, for some of you, it may take several moments, I’ll wait.

 Can you remember the anticipation of a childhood event? Do you recall your thoughts about the event and the anxious anticipation of what the future would bring? One thought comes to mind, many of you may remember the comment; “wait till your father gets home”.  What did that feel like? The anxious anticipation of what would befall you and the nervous anxiety of waiting and when the moment arrived, your imagination of what would, happen was far worse than what actually happened. Think about the excitement you felt when something you had waited your entire life for, was about to happen. What did that feel like? How large of an imagination did you have? Many of us thought about the event and never thought about the journey between the announcement and the actual event.

November 25^th, 1964, just after noon, I found myself sitting on a large wooden chair in the principal’s office, my hands gripping the edge of the seat and kicking my legs back and forth to the annoyance of the school secretary. She stared at me over her pink horn-rimmed glasses as she typed on the manual Royal typewriter. Two girls from my class, wearing black and white Oxford shoes with white anklet socks, and gray and green plaid skirts with white blouses, stopped at the door, whispered something between themselves, and walked down the hallway giggling. As I sat there waiting, watching the second hand on the clock slowly tick off the seconds and hearing each second pass, suddenly my mother walked into the office and the secretary smiled at my mother, happily anticipating the exit of the hyper child who had annoyed her for the last ten minutes. I wasn’t in any trouble, my mother was there to lead me out to the family car for our journey to the mountains of South Eastern Kentucky and my grandparents’ home for Thanksgiving dinner.

As we stepped out the doors of the school, it was a typical November day in Northern Indiana, gray skies with a light mist in the air, the smell of fall, a chill breeze, naked trees, and the sound of our shoe leather soles clicking on the surface of the red brick sidewalk. As I climbed into the backseat with my sisters, I asked my father if he had packed it and he acknowledged he had as my mother sat in the front seat with a snarled look on her face. With some coaxing from my grandfather and father, my mother agreed for me to go hunting in the mountains with my grandfather’s hounds. She had brought up a strong argument on why I shouldn’t go by myself and she was very concerned for my wellbeing but I had to remind her; that I was a half-grown man and I knew the mountains and it was time for her to cut the apron strings. My father smiled at me and placed his hand on my mother’s leg as she turned her face to the side window and stared at nothing.

As my father pulled away from the front of the school, the clatter of the tires rolling over the brick streets became a subtle roar that almost drowned out the sound of the AM radio station. It would be a twelve-hour, five-hundred-mile drive to get to my grandparent’s home. President Eisenhower had signed the Interstate Highway bill eight years earlier but there was nothing but two-lane roads through the countryside to get to our destination. The brick streets switched to the pavement and the Indiana countryside was busy with the fall harvest in full swing with the fallow-colored harvested corn stalks littering the fields. Passing patches of woods and cattle grazing in sparsely green and brown pastures, our car headed south through many small towns with storefronts decorated with fall and Thanksgiving decorations. Passing piles of colorful leaves along the streets, many blowing into swirls as our car passed, and the smell of stale burning leaves and a smoky haze settling along the ground. The smoke seemed to follow the car and slowly drifted upward into ghostly shapes as we passed by. Driving through the towns, I would look down the alleys and see the rows of privies all aligned with the backs of the homes with dogs following children on bicycles, on their way to their next adventure. Night would settle in and sleep would cause a time warp effect, stopping and paying a toll to cross a bridge over the Ohio River, waking up long enough to walk into a “Whites Only” bathroom in Frankfort, Kentucky. The curving roads of the mountains, the smell of methane gas leaching from the hillside, and my little sister getting motion sickness and puking into the coffee can brought along for such circumstances. Sleep would again come and the next awaking would be pulling through the creeks of my grandparent’s home site. A warm greeting from my aunt and uncle, who had arrived earlier, welcomed us as the night damp chill of the hollow enfolded us as we gathered our suitcases and my shotgun. As we entered my grandparent’s home, my boy cousins were nestled on a pallet of blankets and quilts alongside the potbelly stove. I would soon take my place among them and fall fast asleep once again. I was awakened by my grandfather stoking the fire of the potbelly stove as he gave me a warm smile and asked me if I was ready to take the dogs into the mountains. He reminded me he would wait to feed them on our return from the hunt and light was coming and I needed to get ready. I jumped up from the pallet into the chill of the room and dressed quickly, putting on my green hunting boots and denim jacket. Grabbing my hunting vest and shotgun, stepping onto the front porch and watched the coal and wood smoke roll along the lower hollow. I gathered the excited dogs and headed into the mountains along the edge of the creek as dawn made its presence. I had gone no more than a hundred yards when a grouse rustled from beneath a clump of grass and I wasn’t fast enough to pull the hammer back and get a shot off and my excitement increased. I was now imagining myself walking back to the house with several rabbits or squirrels and the thought of grouse would be a bonus. As I went deeper into the woods, the hounds jumped a rabbit, and it ran directly in front of me, again, I wasn’t able to pull the hammer back, quick enough to get a shot off. Following the livestock path deeper into the hills, along the side of the creek, the hounds once again bay after jumping a creature. I knew I must get to higher ground to intercept what the hounds were chasing in my direction. I quickly moved up the hillside to gain a position on a ledge, as the hounds bay became a constant scream as they quickly approached my position. My heart was beating wildly as my breath trying to keep pace as I struggled to gain my position on the ledge. I could hear the creature coming now and it sounded like something larger than I expected to be hunting for. I reached the ledge, gathered my position, and readied myself, looking down at the hammer of my shotgun as I shook with excitement, looking up just as a black bear was running at me in a full run with the hounds just a few yards behind. Fearing a collision, I stepped backward into nothing, falling backward, sliding and rolling across the slimy clay and moss-covered hillside and the flat sandstone rocks, landing bottom side in the cold water of the creek with my shotgun held tightly to my chest. The bear and dogs passed quickly as they headed downhill to a large tree, far below my position. As I stood up, the cold water ran down the back of my legs and added additional water to my water-logged boots. I collected myself and located a position where I could remove my boots and dump the water as I now shivered from the cold, it was going to be a long walk to my grandparent’s home. Opening the gate to the yard and walking alongside the house, I was met by my grandmother’s soft smile and a warm biscuit.

Our expectations of an event are often greater than the actual event itself. We see ourselves in the final grandeur but all too often, it’s not the event we remember, it’s the journey.  Taking a comment from a famous newsman from that era; Walter Cronkite, “And that’s the way it is, Thursday, November 26^th, Thanksgiving, 1964.