Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming… ah yes, the Star Spangled banner, a song I’ve never had occasion to sing in the past, but now can’t get out of my head, having just celebrated my very first Thanksgiving. Not that I’m American, of course, but with a new colleague in town all the way from Florida, I was privileged last Thursday to tuck into a tasty traditional turkey, sweet potato and pumpkin pie dinner, commemorating the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers in the New World and that landmark occasion when they sat down for supper with the indigenous natives, before stealing their land and shoving them in reservations.
For those of you unfamiliar with the festive gathering, apparently it’s customary to go around the table and for each diner, in turn, to – as the name of the holiday suggests – give thanks. Not in the ‘Grace after meals’ sense, although I’m sure that takes place in countless Jewish households across the States, but to express gratitude for specific aspects of our lives, to count, one might say, our blessings.
That being the case, and with the end of the year almost upon us, it seemed appropriate ahead of the meal, to take stock – to ask myself who Zeddy was and what he had achieved.
In days of yore, of course, our forebears would head to the tops of mountains or lock themselves in monasteries in a bid to find themselves. Such an exercise in self reflection could take weeks, months or even years. Nowadays though, if you want to find yourself, the best place to look is Google. And so it was that I flicked on my computer, typed ‘Zeddy’ into the search box and within milliseconds discovered that there were no fewer than 127,000 pages on the world wide web that could tell me who I was and what I’d done.
Lacking the patience to go through all of them, I decided to limit my endeavour to those more recent entries, categorised under ‘News’. As expected there were a fair few entries relating to articles and columns I’d written for this paper, so no surprises there. However, one or two results cropped up detailing aspects of my life of which I had no recollection. For instance, a correspondent to the Tulsa Beacon appropriately reminiscing about Thanksgivings gone by, wrote “Another good memory was just hearin’ all the funny stories that grandma Zeddy would tell as she sat in her lawn chair in the kitchen. Nobody could tell stories like she could and when she took off her oxygen tube to light up another cigarette you knew you were in for a doozy.”
But that’s not all. He continues: “All my aunts and grandma Zeddy would get up in the morning at about 2am to start cookin’ that turkey and fryin’ baloney.”
How any of that slipped my mind, I have no idea. You’d think I’d remember telling doozy stories and fryin’ baloney.
But that’s not all. On the other side of the globe, Australia’s news.com.au website reported that “The RSPCA is to get a new home at the former John Oxley Youth Detention Centre in Brisbane's west. Brisbane Premier Anna Bligh announced the move today at the RSPCA's major fundraiser Million Paws walk in here she and her golden retriever Zeddy joined 4,000 other dogs and their owners.”
Tulsan grandmother with an oxygen tube, the four-legged friend of an Australian politician, and we haven’t even started on my various glittering careers as a Kenyan sprinter or a Ugandan airforce commander.
Between you and me, I don’t know where I find the time to do it all. But, with my memory prodded by Google, it seems I lead quite a fulfilling and fascinating life.
And for that I give thanks.
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