As I think back on it. It was a kind of a cream-colored stucco house grandma's house was rather square-shaped house with a big wooden shed sloping off the back of it that you could see from a long way off cross the cornfield as we drove up along the black top with modern dad and sister and brother and and always two pies one pumpkin and one man's wrapped in tin foil and placed up there on the Shelf under the under the back window and steaming it up a little bit.We are late as we come along. Our family's always late to these things and as the car slows down and comes up to the big yard turns in the driveway. You see all the other cars pulled up around the big tree in the middle of the farmyard. All Fords like ours. We were we were Ford family all black sedans and couple of Hoops. And we get out and all of the cousins come running up to say hello to us. And we teased and hug by their Uncle John who's my dad cousins who who now have children who are who are older than themselves in my memory strange thought Marilyn Jani and Jack and David and Richard and Susan reichle all of us in a little heard. They're out in the in a cold November. And so you begin again Thanksgiving long slow day long family ritual that you are sure at the age of 6 will never ever change and all of the people will never grow older. The first rule is that before you can play you have to go inside and say hello to all the adults and so you go into the woodshed and into the kitchen and the big furnace of a wood stove that was going and had been going since 5 o'clock that morning. The bread and the Royals are all piled up under the Shelf up above it. And you touch and are touched by One Cheek after another go right down the road first Grandma's cheek, which was very soft cheek and had had a light down fuzz on it. And Eleanor's and Bessie's and roofs and Franny's and Josephine's and floors all of them in the kitchen and then into the front room is never called living room. It was always the the front room. Where my dad might be sitting at the pump organ the old Reed organ playing and the uncles are all there and they say Hello. Maybe shake your hand and remark on your height and ask about school and how you're doing and you're doing fine. Thank you. And finally you're released. I've often wondered what happened to that Reed organ and who got it and I wished I had stayed indoors and listen to it more than but I never did. Old people always wanted you to stay indoors with them sit down and and talk with them. Sometimes you had to but never very happily at that age. They all seem so heavy and so slow. Old people in their late 30s and 40s on I was wondered why the did so much City. What a relief it was to escape from and to get out of doors out of the house out into the barn and out with the cousins. First you stop by the corn crib and selected a good fat ear of corn for Prince. Big Belgian Workhorse and scratched his head little bit as he ate it one was all you were allowed. And then down to the cows part of the barn and slip pass her a long road seemed like a mile of the rumps of whole steams hoping that one of them wouldn't lift your tail and pee on you as you walk by kind of snuck on by him down to the Cavs pin and then up aboard ladder, which was nailed to the to the wall and up into the hey now. Hey Ma was a place where adults never came. They might poke their heads up through a whole but they would never actually come up there. It was a private domain of of children. And there's so many things you could do up there. You could play King of the Hill on a big mountain of hay bales piled up in in one corner or swing on a rope off that mountain and and fly the length of the Mau down to the almost down to the door at the front of the barn where you build forts and houses play hide-and-seek bury yourself in the hay and one of you have to go down the ladder little ways and count up to 50 or play tag or have hey fights or sit as we sometimes did and talk about those dark secrets that adults never talk about Where do we come from mainly and how are we made? And all of those what if questions what if you had never been born? What if you'd been born somebody else Born Chinese? Maybe you're born somebody in Chicago or New York City? What if God had put your soul into into somebody else maybe a poor person? We knew that we were supposed to believe that God had always intended us to be exactly as we were but it was scary and it was wonderful to think that maybe everything was accidental. And talk about it and to speculate. That may be all of the souls are lined up in a big shoot in heaven and that when the next baby is ready to be born that baby gets which every soul is ready to roll out and if you had been born one second later, you would have been born somebody else. You wouldn't be here tall and he's wouldn't be your relative. for childish was the dark mystery side Thanksgiving and he thought about it not a lot but a little bit. Thanksgiving day and all I was together there are great big family and and so much to be thankful for as we knew mother and dad and food and God who loves us and our cousins including the older kids who aren't always nice to us as they are today. and on the other side Island What if we had had none of this? What if we were dead what if we were somebody else what if the sun didn't shine what a floods came tomorrow or big wins and blues all away. Well, we're going to put aside these fears for a while and all of this doubt and confusion that frightens us and confuses us ever since we were children and look around us and be glad for our lives today if we have eyes to see I'd be full of praise for the barn and the hay Mal and the cattle and horses and chickens and the house and the kitchen and aunts and uncles right down to the pan of gravy bubbling on the stove for Thanksgiving Day. In the township of Ramsey in the county of Anoka the state of Minnesota the United States of America the Western Hemisphere Earth the solar system the universe and the mind of God. It ought to be a very easy holiday to feel happy about Thanksgiving because really is blessedly simple day. The reason for its being is not to give us a three-day weekend or to give an end-of-the-year boost annual retail sales as other holidays. We might mention but to feel pleasure and gratitude for all the good things that we have starting with home and family and and Who We Are now as a feast day Thanksgiving falls just at the right time or at least it used to back in the days before home freezers this time of year late. November was a time of great Plenty when it was cold enough to do your slaughtering and expect the meat to keep and still close enough to Summer that you'd still have plenty of fresh vegetables down in the dirt salad particularly the potatoes in the squash and the pumpkins. And it was also the time of year to do in the turkey after he'd been fattening himself on whatever he found around the Barnyard, but before it snowed and you had to put him on the Dole over the winter months. It's doubtless true that we nowadays over do the dinner part of Thanksgiving and probably a feast doesn't mean what it used to back when rations were short for more people. But then the family part of it to probably means more than it did then when more family stuck close together. Now we talked a little bit about the hey Ma up on my grandma's farm. And what a wonder that was when I was a kid on Thanksgiving and perhaps you wondering what else we did by way of amusement other than the Thanksgiving dinner, which when you're six and seven and eight years old is not a real big deal all that food and you're anxious to get away soon as you can. Well, there was always music for one thing. It was a pump organ out in the front room and there were a lot of willing voices. When you have a lot of grown-ups who are willing to stand around and sing loud a kid whose little shy about his voice is always able to find a place in there, you know without making a spectacle of himself and we'd sing a lot of hymns on Thanksgiving as I recall. And they're also poems. my father knows and knew then more poems and had them by heart than any person that I've met since Or perhaps it was that he was not shy about declaiming them. They were not the shy sort of poems quiet introverted poems you would you would whisper don't you know, they were declamatory poems. And you know how it is when you have committed something to memory a long time ago. You're not always able to fish it up out of your head. Just whenever you might want to but something will will touch it off and out. It'll come line after line. Of course having an audience was always a stimulus to him. And then two if you ever brought up a topic or a word that was in one of the poems that he knew by heart. You were pretty likely to hear the whole thing. Somebody might mention a wagon and he'd ask you have you heard of the wonderful one harsh a that was built in such a logical way it ran a hundred years to a day. And then of a sudden it but stay I'll tell you what happened without delay scaring the Parson into fits frightening people out of their wit's have you ever heard of that? I say or blacksmiths, of course Or anything to do with horses. Would recall that Village. In Longfellow under a spreading chestnut tree The Village Smithy stands the Smith a mighty man. Is he with large and sinewy hands and the muscles of his brawny arms are strong as iron bands. And there was always mid pleasures and palaces. And young Lochinvar has come out of the West the wall. The white border. His Steed was the best and save his good broadsword. He weapon had none he rode all unarmed and he rode all alone. So faithful and love and so Dauntless in war there never was night like the young Lochinvar. all of those poems it You and I and Ordinary People may know the first stanza of my father knew all the way to the end. Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere on the 18th of April in 75. Hardly. A man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year. And very few men or women are still alive. We remember that entire poem. Or I sprang to the Stirrup and joris and he I galloped or Gallop. We galloped all three Goodspeed cried the watches the gate bolts on Drew speed echoed the wall to us Galloping through behind shut the poster and the light sank to rest and into the midnight. We galloped a breast. Of course, I'm only reading and you can't really say them in the right way unless you have them committed to memory and are able to stretch out your arms and stand up. and the Boyne in Longfellow the shades of night were falling fast as through an Alpine Village passed to youth Who Bore mid snow and ice a banner with a strange device Excelsior. I guess one of his favorite poems of of Longfellows though and one of mine too, and I can remember hearing this one was the wreck of the Hesperus. the wreck of the Hesperus it was the Schooner Hesperus that sailed the wintery Sea and the skipper had taken his little daughter to Bear him company blue or her eyes as the fairy flax her cheeks like the dawn of day and her bosom white as the Hawthorne buds the open the month of May. The skipper. He Stood Beside the helm his pipe was in his mouth and he watched how the veering flaw did blow the smoke now west now South then up and spake an old sailor had sailed the Spanish main. I pray thee put into Yonder port for I fear hurricane last night the moon had a golden ring and tonight no moon. We see the skipper. He blew away from his pipe and a scornful laugh laugh tea. Colder and louder blue the wind Gale from the Northeast the snow fell hissing in the Brine and the Billows Frost like East down came the storm and smote a-main the vessel in its strength. She shuddered and paused like a frighted steed then leapt her cables length. Come here. Come here my little daughter and do not tremble. So for I can weather the roughest Gail that ever wind did blow. He wrapped her warm in his Siemens code against the stinging blast. He cut a rope from a broken Spar and bound her to the mast. Father I hear the church bells ring will say what may it be there's a fog bail on a rockbound coast and he steered for the Open Sea all father. I hear the sound of Gonzo say what may it be some ship in distress the cannot live in such an angry sea. Oh Father, I see a gleaming light of say what may it be but the father answered never a word a frozen corpse was he Lashed to the helm all stiff and Stark with his face turned to the skies. The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow on his fixed and glassy eyes. And the Maiden clasped her hands and prayed that saved she might be and she thought of Christ who still the wave on the lake of Galilee. And fast through the midnight dark and Drear through the whistling sleet and snow like a sheeted ghost The Vessel swept towards the reef of Norman's whoa. And ever the fitful gusts between a sound came from the land. It was the sound of the trampling surf on the rocks and the hard cease and the breakers were right beneath her boughs she drifted a jury wreck and a whooping below swept the crew like icicles from her deck. She struck where the white and fleecy waves looked soft as carded wool, but the cruel rocks that gourd her side like the horns of an angry Bowl her rattling shrouds all sheathed and ice with the masts went by the board like a vessel of glass. She stove and sank. Oh the breakers roared. At Daybreak on The Bleak sea beach a fisherman stood aghast to see the form of a Maiden Fair last close to a drifting mast. The salt sea was frozen on her breast the salt tears in her eyes, and he saw her here like the brown seaweed on the Billows fall and Rise such was the wreck of the Hesperus in the midnight and the snow Christ save us all from a death like this on the reef of Norman's wall. Palm from 1839 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow It's hard to say which palm be my father's favorite. But this is one that was cited to us a few times in part and in hole. a poem by Will Carlton poet who also wrote that famous Palm bout them about the Gallows. They're taking me to the Gallows mother. They mean to hang me high. They're going to gather around me there and watch me till I die in the end. He isn't hung by the way. This is Will Carlton's poem over the hill to the Poorhouse. And we children did not need to have the moral of this poem pointed out to us. Over the hill to the Poorhouse. I'm trudging my weary way. I woman of 70 and only a trifle gray. I whom smart and chipper for all the years. I've told as many another woman that's only half as old. Over the hill to the poor house the can't quite make it clear over the hill to the poor house seems so hard queer many as step. I've taken a Toyland to and fro but this is a sort of Journey. I never thought to go. What is the use of Heap and on Mia poppers shame my laser? You're crazy. Am I blind or lame Drew? I'm not so Supple nor yet. So awful Stout, but charity no favor. If one can live without I'm willing and anxious and ready any day to work for a decent living and pay my honest way for I can earn my Vittles and more to I'll be bound if anybody only is willing to have me around. Once I was young and handsome, I was upon my soul. Once my cheeks were roses my eyes as black as coal. And I can't remember in them days of hearing people say for any kind of a reason that I was in their way. No use of boasting or talking over free but many a house and home was opened then to me many a handsome offer. I had from likely men and nobody ever hinted that I was a burden then and went to John I was married sure. He was good and smart, but he and all the neighbors would own I done my part for life was all before me and I was young and strong and I worked the best that I could in trying to get along and so we work together in life was hard but gay was now and then a baby for her to cheer us on our way to we had a half a dozen and all growed clean and neat and went to school like others and had enough to eat. So we worked for the children and raised him everyone worked from summer and winter just as we ought to have done. Only perhaps we humor them which some good folks condemned, but every couples children's a heap the best of them. Strange how much we think of our blessed little ones I'd have died for my daughters. I'd have died for my son's and God he made that rule of love. But when we're old and gray, I've noticed that sometimes somehow fails to work the other way strange not a thing when our boys and girls were grown and when except in Charlie, they left us there alone when John he nearer and nearer come and near seem to be the Lord of hosts. He came one day and took him away from me still I was bound to struggle and never to cringe your fall still. I worked for Charlie for Charlie was now my all and Charlie was pretty good to me with scarce a word or frown till at last He Went A-Courtin and brought a wife from town. She was somewhat dressy and hadn't a pleasant smile. She was quite conceding and carried a heap of style. But if ever I tried to be friends I did with her I know but she was hard and proud and I couldn't make it go she had medication and that was good for her. But when she tweeted me on mind was carrying things too fur and I told her once for company and it almost made her sick that I never swallowed a grammar or at arithmetic. So it was only a few days before the thing was done. There was a family of themselves and I and other one. And a very little cottage one family will do but I never have seen a house that was big enough for two and I never could speak to Suitor never could please her eye and it made me independent and then I didn't try but I was terribly staggered and felt it like a blow when Charlie turned again me and told me I could go I went to live with Susan but Susan's house was small and she was always a hinting how snug it was for us all and what with her husband sisters and what with children three it was easy to discover that there wasn't room for me. Then I went to Thomas the oldest son. I've got four Thomas's buildings would cover the half of an acre lot. But all the children was on me. I couldn't stand their sauce and Thomas said I needn't think I was coming there to boss and then I wrote to Rebecca my girl who lives out west and Isaac not far from her some 20 miles at best and one of them said to his to warm their for anyone so old and other had an opinion the climate was too cold. So they have shirked and slighted me and shifted me about so they've well nice soured me and wore my old heart out. But still I've borne a pretty well and wasn't much put down till Charlie went to the poor master and put me on the town. Over the hill to the poor house my children dear. Goodbye many a night. I've watched you when only God was nigh and God will judge between us, but I will always pray that you shall never suffer the half I do today. over the hill from the Poorhouse by Will Carlton Now I want to read one more thing to you. I know they're good many people who were too shy to open up a Bible in public in front of people even on Thanksgiving. So I'm going to open it up for you reads little bit and this is the 107th psalm. O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endureth forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy and gathered them out of the lands from the East and from the west from the north and from the south. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way. They found no City to dwell in hungry and thirsty their soul fainted in them. And they Cried unto the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way that they might go to a city of habitation. All the men would praise the Lord for his goodness. And for his wonderful Works to the Children of Men. For he satisfies the longing soul and Phyllis the hungry soul with goodness. He poor with contempt upon princes and causes them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way yet set of he the poor on high from Affliction and maketh him families lack of flock. The righteous shall see it and rejoice and all iniquity shall stop their mouth. Whoso is wise and will observe these things? Even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord? from 107 psalm from Thanksgiving