Canadian Thanksgiving, 2007

Transcribed from handwritten manuscript

There is complete silence here-its high noon and I am in my little apartment near the harbour. Its difficult to think of leaving such a place. The task I had really come here to complete is concluding and its time to look ahead, at last. But its Thanksgiving today. The weather seems right, drizzling and just above freezing. Thanksgiving is celebrated here on this day, October first, and it seems much less intense a gathering than back home. In fact, nearly everything is less intense here.

Yes, a lack of any intensity. No better way to recall this day than Thanksgiving on the farm, as only a 10 year old can recall. The cold wet morning romping through the ancient apple orchard towards the now dead toppled corn stalks in the fields beyond. In the distance a row of tall pines marking the imaginary boundary of my world. Skeletons of brown, fermenting apples of russet, green, and yellow fill the heavy cool morning dampness with a pungent, earthy memory. Crows fly at a distance, most likely seeing my shotgun and spreading the word in alert. My best friend in those years, my Shepard collie Ollie, tail wagging madly rushed down the corn rows. In moments with a loud "TERK" a ring-necked pheasant blasts, rocket-like skyward.

My single shot Stevens 20 gauge, the sweet sound of its explosion, the luscious smell of gunpowder in the cool mist. The bird falls and flutters, dying on the bare brown earth between the cornrows. It always amazed me how gently and with what reverence Ollie would pick-up a bird in his jaws like a fragile toy, and slowly walk, bow his head to release the bird, white neck ring bloodied, into my hands.

I would try to pick the shot off, but for sure there would be number six lead pellets in that Thanksgiving dinner. And of course the feathers would be great for tying flies in anticipation of a long away spring trout season.

Those solitary hunting jaunts with Ollie are some of my finest memories of childhood. Better still are too few times I hunted with my dad. Oh, we went out many times for the birds and other game on the farm and environs. But the best and fewest trips were the opening of Pennsylvania antlered deer season-a De facto state holiday. The Monday after Thanksgiving. Too few, as dad died the day after New Years, 1972. I was newly fifteen.

Its a distant place. Sitting with dad in the gun room. With my sister and mother around the always bounty of our Thanksgiving table. Roast fresh pheasant, yams, garden green beans, the fall turnips and fragrant pumpkin pies. The exposed colonial logs of the dining room ceiling and its wide, hand-hewn wide plank floor. The huge walk-in fireplace. I loved that fireplace. Rimmed with Moravian tile work tiles that told a story of Priscilla and depicted sailing ships. I never knew who she was. Her 18th century gown and the ships at full sail on a tossing sea. Perhaps it told her story of her voyage to the then colony, to our colonial aged Bucks county home.

My meal, alone here on this rainy day here in maritime Canada to be winter stew and whole wheat bread, my mothers recipe. Those days remain vibrant when I turn my thoughts to them. My family, my dog, on the farm. I peered into my pond, fascinated by the doings of the newts, small insects and colorful water plants in the spring-fed clarity. I could spend hours as a boy staring into that mystery. In those places, my love of nature was born. Only much later, as it is in a child's time, I would leave that place. The memory of silt from upland construction choking the life out of my pond.