Thursday, November 22, 2012

This Way to Thanksgiving

I've celebrated Thanksgiving in many places, but when I imagine the day, this is the road I see leading up to it. At the end of the road is my grandparents' old house, the houses where my aunts and uncles and cousins live, the farm. Today, my great uncle tells me, they expect only a few people for dinner. In family parlance, that means less than twenty. There might not be fifty relatives* showing up, but I know there will be lots of good food, kids and dogs running around, jokes laughed over, and stories retold. Afterwards, my aunts will send everyone home with leftovers and big hugs.

There's a song by Mary Chapin Carpenter that reminds me of the road we take to get there and home again. Here's the video:



*Fifty people equals a crowd, one hundred, a large crowd.

Posted by Julia at 8:41 PM

7 comments:

Julia said...

Hi Sue, Thanks for stopping by! They are live oak trees covered in Spanish moss. Live oak trees can live to be very old, and one of the very oldest lives on the same island, a few miles away. Here's a link to it: http://www.sciway.net/sc-photos/charleston-county/angel-oak.html

9:04 PM
marja-leena said...

I remember the live oaks in and around Atlanta, Georgia - amazing trees! Thsis time of year you are naturally missing your large family and home and roots, I'm sure. Happy Thanksgiving.

9:27 PM
Charlestonjoan said...

Stopping by to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!

2:47 AM
Roderick Robinson said...

I'd have listened to that simply on behalf of the acoustic guitars. And what about this for a conceit: are there certain intervals in this song and that of other similar singers (eg, PS) that might be said to be American by their very nature. The feeling that both the melody and the sentiment of the words could be none other than American. Of course there is a huge clue in the first word of most of the lines - the first person singular - which allows (Encourages!) American singers to drag it out in a yearning transatlantic way, but it doesn't end there. I apologise if I'm asking the impossible and requiring you to step outside the thing you were born with but - heck - in the interim you've internationalised yourself and you have the further advantage of knowing just exactly what a diminished seventh is.

My growing deafness has forced me to look up the words (given the association you have with them and the road leading so evocatively to your grandparents' house) and I didn't have far to go to confirm their quality:

For a phone call and a soda, I'm a blur from the driver's side

and

I'm an old truck up on cylinder blocks, missing all my wheels.

I wish I could part with something equally new, unexpected and of similar value but I live a life that doesn't much budge between me and my super-dooper expensive Ilyama monitor. Ah, yes. The Elliott Carter. I'll play it this PM, after lunch, and let you know.

2:01 PM
Dilys said...

Thank you for sharing that lovely song, one I had not heard before but seemed to distill every trip I took as a child, and made me miss them all with such poignancy that I had tears before it was finished. And for the long driveways of mossy oaks! Thanks for the memories! Hope you had a lovely thanksgiving.

3:10 PM
Roderick Robinson said...

Have played the Carter several times and written a post which will appear early next week. It is however aimed at novices but you may get something out of it.

1:23 PM
The Coffee Lady said...

I do so love Mary Chapin Carpenter. Freakily, I have an album of hers playing in my kitchen right now.

7:58 PM

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