A Nice Thanksgiving Tale.

Hey I had so many hits the other day about my Bill Sparkman story that I think I might have to start paying for the Statcounter!!

Anyway - here we are the day after Thanksgiving; I have a nice little Thanksgiving story to tell which will warm the cockles of your heart; that is if you've got a heart.

I had always heard of Thanksgiving from the movies and I had heard Americans mention it but it never really meant anything to me.

The first Thanksgiving I spent in America was in 1995; before my wife arrived I was living in Silverlake in digs with a few characters that made it into my novel. I asked somebody what it was about and the girl I asked started to tell me about the Revolutionary War; then someone interrupted her and told her she was completely wrong; and of course she was. I was told it was to commemorate the time the first settlers here broke bread with the Indians but maybe it wasn't.

Sometime during the first years of the Republic congress wanted an American holiday established and when they were looking for something to celebrate they decided on the story about the Indians. They had celebrated the harvest festival in the 17th century with the Indians in Virginia. Then when FDR was President they decided that the fourth Thursday of the month would be the day and not the last as some Novembers have five.

Some of that might not be right but it's near – I heard about the FDR bit on NPR over the weekend.

If you look on Wiki you will see that Thanksgiving is not celebrated in many other countries; Canada and America and a holiday called Thanksgiving in Grenada. In England and Ireland, the countries I know, turkey day is Christmas and at Harvest time the kids take food to school and have some kind of feast but never a holiday.

I can't say I am emotionally involved in Thanksgiving; I don't have the mindset for it but at one time I would never ever consider working over the Christmas Holiday; and that is nothing to do with religion. In England I can't remember the last time I heard anybody mention Jesus at Christmas apart from Carol Singers who would sing at your door if they saw a light on.

The trick was to pretend you were out and hide in the back room as the singers would come around nearly every night. Half of them didn't know more than one Carol and would go away if you gave them money and sing the same song next door.

I remember one old grump who came out and started shouting at the carol singers as they had woken his kids up; I don't think they had but I'm sure his shouting did.

In 1995 I spent my first Thanksgiving holiday here and a friend of mine told me that the Laugh Factory in Hollywood was the place to go for out of work actors; you just had to book ahead.

I called them up and booked a place and on the day not only were there a few people like me there but also every 'down and out' in Hollywood was woofing down his food and ignoring the comedians. The comedians kept shouting "Laugh! It's free!"

But I have to say, notwithstanding what I've said above about my mindset and emotions, Thanksgiving is a great holiday. It has no denominational religious aspect to it at all and is very welcoming to all classes and creeds. TV Stars serve food at missions – they did that day at The Laugh Factory although I did recognize any of them – a man of the cloth is famous for giving dollar bills out in the street to the homeless and people spend a fortune travelling home.

When my wife joined me in the USA in 1996 we were invited to a friend's home, we went to a restaurant one year and for a few years we went to a house full of an extended family and friends from Israel. It was a bit like having a meal with all the stereotypical families from the movies; all shapes, sizes and ages.

The other thing we have been doing for years on Thanksgiving is to deliver 'Meals on Wheels' to seniors but this year we didn't do that; we both have the flu. Well close to the flu; we are coughing, sneezing and spluttering all over the place and we didn't want to spread that to the seniors of Hollywood.

We were also invited to a friend's house for Thanksgiving lunch and we had to duck out of that too. So yesterday we spent the day indoors feeling sorry for ourselves. We took a few phone calls from our children in London and Suffolk and then at about 6.00 last night my cell phone rang; it was my friend that we had let down for the meal and he told me he was doing his own 'meals on wheels' delivery and to come down to the lobby.

I slipped on my track suit bottoms and took the elevator to the lobby; I couldn't really see much but when I opened the front door there was a basket of food nearby topped with a small vase of flowers; in the distance my friend said “I'm not coming near your virus.”

I thanked him and off he went.

So we had the Thanksgiving meal after all – mashed potatoes, succulent turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and all the trimmings which was very welcome and very enjoyable – now isn't that a nice Thanksgiving tale?