Norman Rockwell, not John Wayne, informs our Thanksgiving celebrations
By Tom Allen
For Americans, Norman Rockwell’s depiction of a family Thanksgiving is as familiar as Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” or James McNeill Whistler’s portrait of his mother.
But if art imitates life, growing up, I was brushed out of Rockwell’s painting more often than not.
I vaguely recall a few traditional Thanksgivings with family, albeit half the size of Rockwell’s troupe. Our table featured a roasted Butterball, Granny’s dressing, and jellied Ocean Spray. Sweet tea, laced with ReaLemon Juice, washed down bowls of collards and turnips, taters and snap beans. My Methodist granny occasionally popped the cork on a bottle of “French wine.” Pecan pie (I didn’t have pumpkin until my 30s) completed the feast. Football and a carb-induced nap rounded out the afternoon. Hugs were plentiful but conversation, scant. The celebration ended by 3 p.m.
As grandkids grew and elders’ health declined, meals became more eclectic, less Rockwellian. One Thanksgiving during college, after Santa concluded the Macy’s parade, baked spaghetti greeted Dad and me. Grateful, I bowed my head, smiled at Mom’s aberration, then dug in. Who needs a broad-breasted bird when baked pasta is just as good?
My last year in seminary, a cute brunette I met during study abroad invited me to share Thanksgiving on her family’s Kentucky horse farm. I invested in a haircut and a blue oxford cloth button-down. Alas, my dorm became my Old Kentucky Home for the holiday. At 6 a.m. Thanksgiving morning, Ann called to say her mother came down with strep throat. Maybe next year.
Providence intervened. A motley crew of would-be ministers concocted a Thanksgiving feast. Scott, dumped just days before by a reluctant fiancée, stirred up a bowl of instant mashed potatoes. Dave warmed canned green beans in his microwave. I snagged a Mrs. Smith’s Pecan Pie, reduced for quick sale, at Kroger. Luis, whose family fled Cuba with nothing but the clothes on their backs, roasted the turkey. The dorm smelled of cumin for days. Vernon, deaf and mute from birth, signed grace. We all said, “Amen.”
Years later, our family would include two teenage daughters. We made the every-other-year trek to north Georgia for Thanksgiving with my wife’s folks. Work schedules disrupted Thanksgiving Day, so we dined on Friday. We left Whispering Pines Thanksgiving morning, only to return an hour later for a forgotten suitcase. By afternoon, our nerves were frazzled by traffic and our stomachs groaned from hunger. Restaurants off the interstate were closed. With gas running low, we pulled into a Shell station. Empty booths inside the convenience store provided a place to spread what we’d packed for the road — chicken salad, saltines, grapes and Nabs. We bowed our heads, gave thanks, then washed down our moveable feast with Dr. Pepper, Cheerwine and Diet Coke. We shook our heads, smiled about the day’s happenings, and made a memory we talk about, every year, on the fourth Thursday of November.
Norman Rockwell’s painting depicts three generations gathered around a dining room table. Grandma, aproned and coiffed for the holiday meal, delivers the turkey on, no doubt, her mother’s china platter. Grandpa, in suit and tie, grinning and famished, stands behind her, waiting to pray, carve and eat. The painting was one of four, illustrating a 1943 series of Saturday Evening Post essays. Based on Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, outlined in his 1941 State of the Union address, Rockwell appropriately named his Thanksgiving portrait “Freedom from Want.”
Seventy years later American families look different. Yet, Roosevelt’s words and the Rockwell portrayal remain timeless. Thanksgiving is still about gratitude. So, yes, give thanks for all you have while remembering to make room at the table for others, so they, too, experience gratitude.
Then, no matter what your menu or who you consider family, everyone will have a special meal, a reason to smile, and hopefully, because of your kindness, a memory to cherish forever. PS
Tom Allen is minister of education at First Baptist Church in Southern Pines.