Over the River and Through the Woods

Thanksgiving for my 60 years has been associated with traveling.  As a youngster we would usually travel the 70 miles in our ’52 Studebaker to my grandmother’s house in Manawa.  After she passed away we had a few years of a small Thanksgiving at home.  One year when we had mild weather like this fall, I remember baling third-crop hay Thanksgiving afternoon.

Some years later, my father’s side of the family started the tradition gathering on the Saturday after Thanksgiving at his sister’s house.  My aunt will never be confused with Martha Stewart.  The family would gather in the “lower level” of the house.  (My dad called it “the cellar.”)  There we would dine around the pool table covered with plywood.  A table cloth would cover the table.  We still laugh about the year she bought a “Battlestar Galactica” tablecloth presumably by mistake.

Since being married, Thanksgiving has been spent at my in-law’s home in Strum.  Because the guys in the family are deer hunting that has been a perennial arrangement.  As the number of grandchildren increased it was usually mayhem.  For several years, we would travel the “Wisconsin Triangle.” With small kids in the car it was not unlike the Bermuda Triangle.  From western Wisconsin we would travel to my home near Green Bay.  We would then be poised to take part in the Saturday gathering of the Schaub clan and guess what movie theme would bedeck the pool table.  From there we would hustle home to south-central Wisconsin to meet my Sunday morning duties.  The very memory of those days exhausts me.

Here’s the point:  family is a precious commodity.  There are jokes about dysfunctional families and the holidays and tragically there are some.  However, solid family units overlook the frailties and failings and rejoice in the blessings we bring to the family.  There will be the sacrifices of fatiguing travel; uncomfortable sleeper sofas; and nonexistent solitude.  But, such are the things memories are made of and how we establish the value of family for our children and grandchildren.

Happy Thanksgiving and Safe Travels!