the day before Thanksgiving

Most Americans don’t seem to like the idea that Canada has Thanksgiving early. Actually, they don’t seem to like it that we have Thanksgiving at all. I gather the American Thanksgiving commemorates a specific historical dinner in which the Indians saved the Pilgrims from starving to death. I’m hazy on the details, but it seems to me that this mythical dinner happened long before America existed. Canada’s First Nations likewise saved countless colonists from scurvy and starvation. Had they been less forth coming with their culinary acumen things might have turned out differently for all parties.

All I know is, avoid air travel on Thanksgiving long weekend. Everybody’s going home to see their families and nobody’s happy about it. Somebody asked me the other night if Canadian Thanksgiving was about the Indians, or was it just a harvest festival. I said: We eat a lot and then a horrific family drama ensues. She said: Oh, so then it’s the same as here.

Holiday meals exacerbate family tensions. Everybody wants something – cranberry sauce, tofurkey. And everybody doesn’t want something – dark meat, prayer. Half the table is busily engaged in warding off conflict with gaiety. A futile endeavour as the other half was pissed off before it even sat down. Someone says the wrong thing. Someone else explains something badly. Someone else wasn’t listening. Someone else lashes out. Someone else takes it personally. One new hurt sets an old hurt hurting until, right around the table, all the hurts are going off like car alarms in a thunderstorm.

I know it’s very wrong of me, but I’m thankful this region is in a drought. Thunderstorms during thanksgiving dinner seem unlikely. I hope there aren’t any incidents of tofurkey or prayer either. Surely sighting a herd of wild turkeys the day before Thanksgiving is a good omen…

Karen and I were checking our email in her studio this morning when a herd of wild turkeys waltzed past, inches from the full-length window in her deck door. We’d never seen them this close up before. They’re fantastically ugly. Do you think any of these are girl turkeys? I’d hate to think that they are. But maybe that’s just species bias. Maybe these are super model turkeys and we just can’t tell.

The turkeys don’t seem to see us staring at them through the glass, or hear us talking about them. Next time I’m tempted to call someone a turkey I’ll know what an insult it is.

I grabbed my camera and followed the turkeys around the yard for a while, stealthily, with slippers on. Nora emerged from Buck’s Cabin with her camera (she had proper shoes on). They don’t see to have any idea what day it is, Nora said. The cook came out and threw them some pieces of apple. Trying to fatten them up? The cook says if you gobble at the turkeys they’ll gobble back. Isn’t it weird that people gobble up animals that make gobbling sounds?

I found a turkey feather for Karen’s collections of small beige things. Nora said: I’m going to tell her you wrestled that turkey to the ground! When I gave the feather to Karen I said: I wrestled that turkey to the ground! She believed me for .08 seconds. Then Nora came over and told Karen: JR wrestled that turkey to the ground. Now we know what happens when three fiction writers cross paths with a herd of wild turkeys.
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