I am starting to seriously bank up holidays.

Though it boggles my mind, Thursday marks my 63rd Thanksgiving. OK, so several of them them I don’t remember, but as people I trust who were there assure me I was, too, with no discount for diapers, I still count them in the tally.

My memories of this quintessential, all-American holiday are all warm and positive. The only pains they give me are the memories of loved ones who gathered around the table in past days to celebrate, and whose absence is keenly felt. They helped made the holiday what it remains to me.

So, for what it’s worth, here is why I rank Thanksgiving the best of holidays.

I love Thanksgiving because it never gets old, and it asks comparatively little of us. Unlike over-commercialized Christmas that begins assaulting our senses as soon as the fireworks of July 4 are spent and cold, Thanksgiving commercials only urge us to scoot your butt to Safeway or Albertson’s down the road to gather the goodies.

I believe we owe this blessing to the curious fact that big corporations — excepting Tyson Foods and their ilk — have not yet contrived how to make galaxy-spanning fortunes on Thanksgiving. I am confident, however, even as I write, that the cogs and wheels in their greedy brains are turning to solve the problem.

It also reminds me of my parents, and my big brother Jim, who died so long ago.

I miss my mother and father in the kitchen, even dad’s annual curse fest over foods and processes that took longer to prepare than he’d expected, and we heard it all. As mom never swore, the pairing of George and Irene Whale made a fine balance.

If I remember correctly, many of the old man’s juiciest invectives cast doubts on the marital status of thermometers, hopelessly vague recipes, cooking utensils in sore repair, and other implements before their births, so to speak. I reminded him once that that didn’t make any sense, and moreover, illogical as these objects had never been alive and consequently could not have been born. I don’t remember his reply.

For many years, post big dinner, one of the three networks that existed back then — ABC, NBC, or CBS — would show the “Wizard of Oz,” and all of us Whale kids got excited to see again a film we’d seen a dozen times before. I remember how indignant I was when our annual gather-round-the-television tradition ended and the network gave us “Oklahoma” instead. Grrr! Well, since then, Gordon MacRae and his “Buggy with the Fringe on Top” and I have made peace, as I have with those winds sweeping down the plain, and it is now one of my favorite films.

What I recall most was simply the warmth of family, eight of us fitting with ease and without fuss into what I realize now was actually a small home. And how we wove family stories around Thanksgiving like no other holiday. I hope your memories are as warm as mine.

–

Robert Whale can be reached at robert.whale@soundpublishing.com.