There was a briskness to the early morning air, my breath frosting as it drifted away on the chilling breeze. Gretch was working ahead, her beagle tail whipping as she tested the frost for the telltale lingering scent of a rabbit or the exciting whiff of an elusive pheasant.
I moved along behind, my numbing fingers gripping the Ithaca double. She made a sudden stop, her quivering stare held on the invisible prey only her nose could see. A sharp yip and a headlong dash signaled me to be ready. Within that flash of fur, a burst of autumn colors erupted into the sky. My aim true, the rooster pheasant tumbled into the fence row’s edge with the dog racing to claim it as her victory.
As I reached down to give Gretch a favorite scratch between her floppy ears, I was startled by a cold, unseen nose bumping my hand. There was Briar, looking with what seemed a knowing curiosity as she sat expectantly beside my easy chair. Now awake from an impromptu nap, I looked down into her intelligent spaniel eyes and smiled.
“How long ago was that?” I asked her, and the little ghost stood expectantly by her side. Could it really have been 50 years since that Thanksgiving morning?
I continued my reach to give Briar a little scratch as Gretch’s image faded. I hoped she was heading back to that fence row to find another bird … That maybe she’d join my brother to finish the day’s hunt. I expect she’ll need to wait a bit longer before I join them again, but that’s how it’s meant to be. As I stood up, a prancing brown English cocker bounced into the room, Briar glaring at the much younger Bramble with disdain.
“It’s all right,” I told her as her low rumbling warned the pup back — though I was a bit unsure whether that assurance was for her or myself.
My neck was stiff from my awkward napping position as I stretched out the kink. Knowing that scratch time was over, Briar arched her own back, gave a last over-the-shoulder scowl at the too-exuberant pup and found a safe place to rest aging bones. I said a bit of a prayer that she’d dream of one of her own hunts and the memories that gently linger there. Of course, Bramble was anything but tired, waiting eagerly by the door. Letting her out, she promptly tried to break her latest speed records while dashing around her invisible racetrack leaving a wake of fallen leaves. Melancholy is impossible while in the company of these cockers — they just don’t allow it.
As I watched Bramble streak about in looping ovals, I was reminded that Briar had once done the same at that age, and I know she remembers those times, too. I’ve often watched her keeping pace during her own leg-pumping snoozes. As Bramble continued her laps, my mind couldn’t help but wander back to the thoughts of so many Thanksgiving mornings and what they’ve come to mean to me.
While Thanksgiving’s origins were days of prayer designated by elders or clergy to honor a variety of good fortunes, it was Abe Lincoln who made it official. He proclaimed the first National Day of Thanksgiving to be Thursday, Nov. 26, 1863. Thereafter, each president continued the annual declaration, settling on the last Thursday of each November. Still, it wasn’t until 1942, when Franklin Roosevelt specified that the fourth Thursday in November would be the permanently recognized Thanksgiving Day — only after his failed attempt to move it to the third Thursday.
Why did he want that change? To extend the Christmas shopping season.
Today, the holiday’s ideals are most often modeled after the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving Harvest Feast of 1621 and the unplanned visit of a large group of Wampanoag tribe members arriving at the small village of Plymouth, Ma. Initially quite fearful of the unscheduled guests, the colonists soon found the visit to be a friendly one. Together they shared roast geese, swans, ducks, harvested crops, venison, stews, vegetables and beer. Turkeys, while available, played less of a part in the feast since waterfowl were more easily found. According to accounts, the day turned out to be pretty disorderly. The liquor, beer, games, abundance of food and the attendee’s hilarious attempts to communicate made the day a memorable success. In fact, a mutual treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag ensued, lasting 54 years, until the unfortunate King Philip’s War.
While the holiday is now part of our collective heritage, each of us has discovered our own family traditions that connect us so vividly to our past. For many, it’s a gathering of family to hear the latest stories and meet the newest additions. Others collect Christmas lists or watch football games while drifting in and out of turkey-induced naps.
For me, it became a morning to take a walk with my dog, avoiding the commotion. We would hunt pheasants, a task that was becoming tougher as habitat and bird numbers both shrank. Still, it was a time to feel the frost tickle both of our noses, to watch the dog’s inherent curiosity push them from brush pile to briar tangles, to bramble patch, to fence row — my current companion’s very namesakes. To once again awaken memories of other chilled Thanksgiving mornings. I’d lost that for a while, but thanks to a neighbor’s invitation, it returned at a time when a young boy may have been disappearing. Each Thanksgiving morning, I still give thanks for that invitation and for the man who saw that yearning. I shot my first grouse that day, and I once again found the path that would lead me into my future.
“When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.”
– Willie Nelson
