It’s Thanksgiving, and time to give thanks for Traditional America, (TA) just like the first Thanksgiving participants gave thanks.
It’s completely understandable if you choose to ignore the somewhat uncomfortable, eventual fate of half of those first participants . . . the, ahem, non-traditional, uhh, Native half . . . who ended up getting bulldozed off the edge of the earth, because the act of ignoring somewhat uncomfortable events and things is one of the things we Traditional American’s do best. Truth be told, in order to really understand what that means would require opening an American history book or two and perusing the facts therein, but before you do something like that, don’t.
Just don’t.
It’ll spoil your Thanksgiving. (Trust me, when it comes to spoiling something, “facts therein” are at the top of the heap.)
Anyway, Traditional America; TA. That’s the thing Bill O’Reilly says is now gone, which makes me wonder how the war on Christmas (TWOC) will be affected. (And WHO the hell ordered the surge on ol’ Saint Nick?) But TWOC will have to wait its turn in line. I don’t multitask as handily as I once did, and keeping things like a topic and/or a point properly placed and aligned within a sen—
Hmm.
Where was I?
Doesn’t matter. Let’s talk about being thankful for our TA memories, why don’t we?
My particular TA, meaning what life was like when I was a kid, included things like never, ever thinking about whether or not I’d have a place to live, food to eat, clean clothes to wear, an elementary school to attend, (ugh), friends just down the block and such truck. TA kids didn’t ever think about stuff like that, because we weren’t forced to think about stuff like that. I can honestly say I never once pondered the security of my father’s employment, (a magnificently underpaid school teacher with a USC graduate degree), or whether he would lose his situation because all our neighbors somehow lost the mental connection between paying taxes and providing basic services like education for all us kids.
I can clearly remember all the things I never once thought about. Like how my parents let me wander and roam about my TA neighborhood as Dame Curiosity whispered in my ear. To let your kid do something like that means you — first and foremost — have a confidence in said kid’s safety and well being. (We’ll leave said kid’s questionable decisions as he acted upon that confidence for another day.)
All that safety stuff infers a belief in the local infrastructure, doesn’t it? And if anything speaks to good ol’ American tradition, it’s infrastructure: Police and fire departments to protect the citizenry, safe roads that go to worthwhile places, bridges that don’t go plop, power lines that remain duly affixed to power poles, food in the local market that doesn’t poison you. It’s a long, boring list.
Interestingly enough, I also don’t remember seeing very many (read: None) Traditional Americans (Native or otherwise) who didn’t look like me. (White, Anglo-Saxon, semi-Protestant.) That didn’t happen until the 7th Grade, when I was bussed many miles to another neighborhood and forced to encounter Wanna’Be TA’s who had different shades of skin color, and/or other features that didn’t quite match mine. I learned much later that my riding the bus was caused by a damnable government program designed to help all the Traditional Americans and Wanna’Be Traditional Americans scattered in different areas learn about one another, and discover we aren’t really all that different.
Apparently a bunch of us discovered precisely that, as a quick gander at the Oval Office will attest.
So when I think about the Traditional America of my youth, I have to confess there aren’t many thoughts about old, white men like Bill O’Reilly. Instead, there are thoughts of many things I took for granted: The comfort of a safe, warm home, food for my belly and clothes for my back; My parents’ work that kept our family secure; The ubiquitous nature of clean water, properly disposed sewage, power at the flip of a switch.
Simple things I took for granted when I was a child.
But now that I’m all grown up, I recognize that the presence of those things can’t be assumed, or, god forbid, taken for granted. If we don’t see them for what they are, and do the necessary things to keep them intact, then, and only then, will the real, Traditional America be gone.
In the meantime, I will be very thankful.
Happy Thanksgiving
