Thanks to Minnewaska, we loved Thanksgiving

I'm writing this on Friday which in my childhood was called "the day after Thanksgiving."

Common sense suggested it was a good time to visit a store or two. We knew such stores (or the mall in "Alec") would be a little abuzz. What we didn't seem to find necessary was to give the day a name.

Giving it a name would seem like an affront to Thanksgiving. Giving it a name would almost seem like creating a false idol. After all, what would we be celebrating? The mere pull of commercialism?

There's nothing wrong with making more rounds at the stores than usual in the weeks leading up to Christmas. But the term "Black Friday" suggests that it's some sort of duty for us to get out and spend money on the day after Thanksgiving.

A big issue this year was whether it's appropriate for Black Friday to seep into Thanksgiving itself. Why are we seriously discussing this?
Shouldn't we accept that Thanksgiving be left alone to be celebrated as intended? Can't the "doorbusters" wait just one more day?

I appreciate that some people are willing to work Thursday at hospitality functions and some restaurants, because that's where some families celebrate part of Thanksgiving. I'm sure many people in Morris are eager to race to "Alec" on Friday.
But it wasn't easy to find dining accommodations on Thursday.

The "buzz" started spreading several weeks ago that there would be no public dinner at the Catholic Church this year. That left a void for our family.

I awoke Thursday morning at least feeling some sense of serenity for the holiday. Feeling my typical need for caffeine in the morning, I ventured out. As I approached McDonald's I noticed another motorist pulling into the drive-up lane there, in vain. It was closed.

The parking lot which once would have had activity due to Coborn's, might just as well have had tumbleweeds blowing across. I'll write again that Coborn's leaving has left a gaping void in our community.
If Paul Martin reads this, he gnashes his teeth. Sorry Paul but I don't see "consolidation" as a happy trend. I'm surprised it hasn't happened more with hardware here.

Coborn's probably would have been open all day Thanksgiving. That was their spirit. If you woke up in the middle of the night realizing you were out of dog food, you could make an emergency run, perhaps with your pajama bottoms on, and avoid getting a dirty look from your dog in the morning.

Neither McDonald's nor DeToy's were open Thanksgiving. One really had to grope. Yes there was Prairie Inn, but that's an establishment that serves alcohol so we usually have that crossed off our list. We're not prudes but it's just our practice.

Thanks to Paul Martin, Willie's was open for part of the day. I bought a Star Tribune in order to see who Patrick Reusse's "Turkey of the Year" was. It's Zygi Wilf, owner of the Vikings, who certainly shows the Black Friday spirit of commercialism.

Only rarely do I grab a table near the entrance of Willie's. It's an interesting place from which to watch people. My breakfast there was the obligatory towering cup of caffeinated beverage and an Almond Joy candy bar.

Very soon I was joined by another individual who normally can be found at McDonald's in the morning. We thought up a nice practical joke: to have eight or nine people agree to park their cars just outside McDonald's on Thanksgiving morning, just to give the impression it's open, and then watch people stream in. People might get so ticked, the cops might come along and take down license numbers.

Then we thought of another practical joke, to put out a box and accost Willie's shoppers by saying we were conducting some sort of "fundraiser," as is often done at the Willie's entrance. What would we be fundraising for? We'd think of something.

Often I pass on these fundraisers because you never know where this money really ends up. I mean, someone is going to end up walking out the door with it. You read in the paper about these things going awry. It can't happen in Morris? Oh, lots of things can happen in Morris.

I was aware that a community supper has been served at Minnewaska Area High School the past few years. When all else fails, check "Google." On Wednesday I went online at the Morris Public Library and in an instant could confirm that a community meal was "on" for this year, overseen by the Pope County Ministerial Association.

Bless them for continuing to do this.

My father is a 1934 graduate of Glenwood High School. He had never been in the new school so I thought it perfect that we arrange to do our Thanksgiving dining there.

One of my father's choral compositions, a patriotic one, provided the theme for the 1953 Glenwood High School yearbook. Wouldn't it be neat if we could show up for that class' presumed 60-year - gulp! - reunion a year and a half from now? Where does the time go?

That class' yearbook unabashedly promoted "Ike" as president (Dwight D. Eisenhower). That was the spirit of that time. America was feeling postwar relief and prosperity. I would be born two years later at the height of the "baby boom."

The people in charge of the Thanksgiving meal at Minnewaska Area thought of absolutely everything. It gets a grade of A-plus.

Not only was the food ample, the spirit of the holiday emanated throughout.

John Stone stopped by to take photos for the "dead tree" media. That's a routine I did a zillion times here in Motown. I remember getting volunteers to pose by the dessert table at Assumption Catholic Church.

I can't imagine why the community meal was canceled here this year. I don't think it was lack of volunteers. I remember one year, Pastor Jarvis made the rounds just offering to fill water glasses, and he joked that there were so many volunteers, he ended up in this very niche specialty!

I learned from the TV news that Alexandria had a big community meal for Thanksgiving. It doesn't look good for Morris to have lost this asset.

One theory I have heard is that too many people were ordering the takeout meals who were really just freeloading. In theory these meals were for seniors or shut-ins. But that's just in theory.

I cringed watching the Channel 9 news and hearing the "Black Friday" term several times. The term has been elevated to the same level as Thanksgiving, a state of affairs we would have found shocking when I was a kid.

When I was young, a feeling of serenity prevailed on Thanksgiving, like the world suddenly slowed to a crawl, and then the next day we definitely considered shopping but only as a common sense type of thing. Treating Friday with reverence by giving it a name might have seemed asinine.

And it doesn't end there. Saturday is "Small Business Saturday." What's the point? We can shop at these businesses anytime. And isn't there "Cyber Monday" too, a day that seems to contradict the spirit of Saturday?

Commercialism has come to mesmerize us. We're supposed to beat down doors to get our mitts on all these new electronic gizmos.

Somehow when I was a kid, we all survived with nothing more sophisticated around us than land-line telephones and clunky TVs hooked up to "cable" (if even that).

Today we have to get an Ipad or Smartphone. We simply must race to these stores on Friday. The 'doorbusters" await us.

Maybe at some point Moses will come down from the mountain and smash the tablets before us. Maybe he'll do it at the Star Tribune which presented a notorious editorial a few days ago rebutting and seeming to scold those Target employees who wanted Thanksgiving to stay clear as a holiday.

"Black Friday" advances like the movie "Blob" to usurp Thanksgiving itself. There is some pushback, thank goodness. But the Star Tribune buys right into the big business/Republican boilerplate lines about how "you should just be thankful to have a job."

Let them eat cake, to be sure.

An op-ed writer suggested last week that the "Norman Rockwell" portrayal of Thanksgiving was becoming myth. So few people stayed idle all day anymore, we're told.

Well, I was fortunate as a kid to be in a family that was "Norman Rockwell" all the way, spending Thanksgiving with relatives, enjoying a home-prepared turkey, and being in no hurry to accomplish anything tangible.

Many of our relatives have passed on. We're not so inclined to spend the day at home, even though the dog would love some turkey "scraps" from the table.

So we went to Minnewaska Area and were 100 percent happy doing so.

Thanks, Pope County Ministerial Association,.

- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com