Thanksgiving Memories

Thanksgiving was a grand and glorious occasion when I was growing up in Fresno more than a half-century ago.

From the time I was in kindergarten at Fremont Elementary to the time I arrived at  Fresno High, my mom and dad always had “the grandmas” and my Uncle Jerry over to our home for a giant Thanksgiving Day feast. They hardly ever dropped by the rest of the year, so that holiday  was special. And it seems to me the weather on those Thanksgiving days was always the way I thought it should be — cold and foggy. Of course, I always wanted it to  snow — but that rarely happened in Fresno, and never on Thanksgiving.

My mom would always get up before dawn on Thanksgiving morning to prep the turkey and the stuffing. She’d mash all those potatoes and cook all those veggies and toss that giant salad and get the cranberries and biscuits ready. It took hours — lots of hours – and as she was making this memorable feast, the aroma of roasting turkey would waft through our small home near Fresno High. It was heaven.

Every Thanksgiving morning I can remember from that time, I would watch Macy’s Parade on NBC — in black and white, of course, because we could not afford a color TV. But even though I’d view the parade in shades of gray, it was magic because I was enamored of the idea of this big-time TV network putting its vast resources to use on the streets of Manhattan to televise this joyful event across the nation. I guess even then, I was getting myself hyped to go into broadcasting.

Just after noon, Dad and I would get into our old Plymouth and head down Arthur Avenue to Weber, and then drive through downtown. We’d go over the Monterey Street overpass to West Fresno, where so many German-Russians, including my grandmas, lived. They had small homes in this, one of the city’s oldest areas. And I remember — as if it were yesterday — how all those German-Russians  kept their lawns and  street gutters so clean, though their neighborhoods were full of sycamore trees which shed in fall. Lots of those folks used brooms to sweep their gutters — I can still visualize them doing that  to this day — and I must have learned well, because I’ve always used brooms to sweep my own gutters, wherever I’ve lived.

We’d pick up Grandma Hart and Uncle Jerry and then pick up Grandma Schmall and be back at our home somewhere around 1 p.m. By that time, Mom would have put all that food onto our special living-room table, which had leaves to expand it, and which we only used at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Oh, what a feast! We’d eat and eat, and while we were eating, my grandmas would often talk to my parents in German. They could speak English well enough, but they were more comfortable using the language they’d learned seven and eight decades earlier. My parents always responded in English. I never thought to ask them why.

The feast would go on and on, until it didn’t. Afterward, the grandmas would help my mom with the dishes, while I’d go outside and play catch with Uncle Jerry. I had a small football I’d picked up when I was 5 or 6 years old, and I kept it for a long time — just so Uncle Jerry and I could play catch after our Thanksgiving lunches.  I think I still have that football somewhere.

There were football games on TV back then, of course — but only two — one on NBC and one on CBS. It seems to me the games often involved the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions. I’d glance at the games, but it was more important to spend time with my relatives, so I did.

And, of course, there was no running off to shop at some big-box store.  There were no big-box stores back then, and the department stores that inhabited downtown Fresno — Gottschalks, Roos/Atkins, Penney’s — all had the good  sense to remain closed on Thanksgiving.  In fact, I can’t remember anything being open on that holiday.  No one thought shoppers would turn out in droves to buy things on Thanksgiving Day — because smart advertising men had not convinced those shoppers they had to purchase anything on a holiday.  My, how things have changed.

Being the child I was, I never thought that our Thanksgiving tradition would come to an end. Of course, it did — once my grandmas and my dad starting having health problems. It was shocking to me to realize, for the first time, that my relatives might be — could be — mortal — and that if they were, perhaps I was, as well. Frankly, I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten over that dismal discovery.

Many Thanksgivings have come and gone since those long-ago days, and the funny thing is — I can’t remember more than a few

So here I am, with a lifetime of Thanksgivings (and the attendant food) under my belt, and my fondest memories are of those celebrations from my childhood. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps I’m just feeling sorry that I’ve grown so old, so fast — and wish I could turn back the clock.

I wouldn’t want to re-live everything in my childhood, by any means. But if I had a chance to get into a time machine and dial myself back to some of my earliest Thanksgivings here in Fresno — I would do it in a heartbeat. They were special — and so was Fresno.