I'm taking a break while the cornbread for the dressing is baking in the oven. I usually take a few minutes to make a list of the things that I am thankful for each Thanksgiving but for some reason this year I'm having trouble focusing.
I believe that the making of my traditional, annual Thanksgiving list is being overshadowed by my “stuff that I need to do” list.
My “to do” list is filled with entries such as:
- Try to fix the vacuum cleaner
- Get the cat a bigger litter box
- Check to see why the county didn’t send us our tax bill yet
- Clean out the hatch of the car
- Peel potatoes for my signature sweet potato pie
If I tried really hard I'm sure I can add least 10 more things to my list. I'm sure that the participants of the first Thanksgiving had a few things on their “to do” list, but somehow I picture them as being much less stressed than people today.
Think about it: they grew the food, they cooked the food, and they ate the food. Most of their immediate concerns in the New World had to do with food. No running hither and yon to pick up dry cleaning or to take the cat to the vet. I certainly don’t want to diminish the desperate circumstances is of that early time in our history that you have to admit in some ways they had it pretty darn good.
