I love Thanksgiving. All of it. From the food to the time of the season. The change of season from Fall to Winter is especially poignant as the weather becomes colder and the land takes a deserved rest. The spectacular foliage color spectacle signals the end of the time for growth and the beginning of the time for the earth to rest and rejuvenate. It also signals the time for people to stay indoors and appreciate the warmth of home and hearth. It is a time of respite and recovery.
One of the most memorable Thanksgiving I had ever spent was,
ironically, not with family or close friends, but with some strangers in the
basement of a sterile institutional building.
Thanksgiving is an awkward time for gradual students, they
are in the midst of the push towards the end of classes, ongoing research,
performing never ending experiments, or writing interminably. It is a slight
four days off, but really just one day off as most gradual students assiduously
put their noses to the grindstone on the other three days, trying to make up
for lost time that aren’t really lost and only take Thanksgiving Day off. Some take
Thanksgiving Day off because everything in
town is closed and they are having to fend for themselves. It was during this
situation that my friends Rick and Joy came up with a grand plan. Rick was a
doctoral candidate at Georgia Tech, as was I, and Joy is married to Rick. They
both matriculated at University of Illinois for undergrad, so we had something
in common which created an instant bond. They lived in the married student
housing buildings just north of the Georgia Tech main campus.
Architecturally, the buildings were plain ugly, but they
served their purpose well for the families that lived there. The institute own
the buildings and the rent was reasonable. They were probably built in the 1970’s
as the lack of character suggested a utilitarian intent; that is, no thought was
given to the aesthetics, both interior and exterior. This was as close to a building
in a Soviet Gulag as I could have imagined.
A few weeks before Thanksgiving, Rick came to me and asked
if I was doing anything for Thanksgiving. I frankly had not thought that far
ahead. My parents were overseas and I was maybe planning on going out to a restaurant
that was open and just grab a meal there. Having spent my first Atlanta Thanksgiving
eating a chili dog, onion rings, and a Frozen Orange in the TV room of The
Varsity, any hot meal is a good Thanksgiving meal. Rick said that he and Joy
were going to host a potluck Thanksgiving feast with their neighbors in married
student housing, and would I like to join them. I leapt at the chance.
The ground rules were that they were going to make the
turkey and everyone else brought a dish from their country. The vast majority
of the married American student couples had plans to go home, so the people who
said yes were foreign gradual students. There were a few other single electrical
engineering gradual students that joined in the festivities. I had no idea what
to expect, and I suspect, neither did they.
That Thursday came and I schlepped my single guy
contribution to the feast. I don’t remember what I brought, it might be
alcohol, or it might be store bought goodies, this was way before I cooked for
real, and had discovered food programming on cable. As I entered the basement
of the common area in the married student housing, the smells wafting from the
room guided me to the right place. I was a bit early but there were a few
dishes already sitting on the large tables in the center of the room. A few of
the neighbors were there, politely nodding hello and perhaps wondering what
they had gotten themselves into. I set my meager contributions on the table and
went into the kitchen. Rick and Joy had hedged their bets and made a few traditional
Thanksgiving side dishes, just in case. They shouldn’t have worried. As time
wore on, more people appeared, until the tables were groaning under the weight
of the accumulated goodies. The conversations became livelier as the time for indulging
drew closer, the kids became used to the strangers and all shyness went away as
they worked hard at their playing.
I don’t remember all that was served, but there were dishes
from all around the globe: Chinese, Korean, Indian, Icelandic, French, Lebanese,
Greek, etc. It was a global smorgasbord. When the time came to partake, no one
was a stranger, everyone jumped at the chance to serve some of their dishes to their
new friends. The sound of conversation grew louder as everyone was describing
their dishes as well as articulating the traditions behind their dishes. It was
obvious that everyone took seriously their mission of introducing their cultural
heritage to their friends and took great care in thinking about this strange
American tradition of Thanksgiving and relating it back to their cultures.
I remember that not much food was left after the crowd was
done. Everyone had that fat and happy warm after glow that can only result from
great gluttony. Even the children were slowed to a mere trot by that meal. The
conversations continued to flow, some were about our research work, much of it
was about making it all work here in a foreign country, and the challenges of
living in a completely different culture and social norms. The few Americans
tried to explain American football and why the Detroit Lions always played on
Thanksgiving Day, neither one of those topics went anywhere as everyone tried
to draw analogies with sports from their own countries in an effort to make
heads or tails out of watching large steroid filled men bash each other, continually
falling, and getting back up just to have the same things happen again.
The party broke up in the early evening if I remember
correctly. I have since colored that memory in the soft sepia tones as one of
the best experiences of my life, so the memories are fuzzy, besides it has been
decades since I was in gradual school.
I do remember making my way home with an enhanced appreciation
for my fellow humans, regardless of our differences in cultures, loving our
commonalities in our humanity, and the beauty of the experience of sharing
food, conversation, and amity.
That was perhaps the perfect exemplification of the spirit
of Thanksgiving. That afternoon in the basement of the Georgia Tech married
student housing showed me a glimpse of what could be if we saw one another as individuals
with significant differences which we can easily bridge on a one-on-one basis.
It is the memories of those times that gives me hope for today.
