I am writing this posting in the dreary fog all parents know too well. For this fog was created by broken sleep. The only thing worse than no sleep, is broken sleep. One can not subsist on power naps alone. If one tries, one will lose his/her mind. At some point, your brain needs to shut down in order for your subconscious to once again remind you that your spawn isn't resisting sleep out of spite. Somewhere around three in the morning, my mind begins to convince me that he's snickering at me every time I'm roused from my bed when faint whimpers turn to blood curdling wails. I tell you all of this as a simple disclaimer in the case that my wanderings of incoherence are for more frequent than normal.
It's that time of year again. The time when families come together to once again marginalize the spirit of a holiday by adhering to elaborate traditions of the various menu options we use to induce family-wide food comas. It's THANKSGIVING!!! A holiday based on giving thanks to God, family, and friends for the gifts we all too scarcely recognize during the day to day grind of trying to survive. Sure, our first world problems are no match for the hardships faced by the early European settlers of the new world, just as much as the small acts of kindness that we show to those around us are sadly no match for the selfless consideration that the native Americans showed toward the pilgrims by sharing their limited resources to ensure the survival of strangers. Their actions did not mirror the law of natural selection. In the wild, if an animal doesn't identify the perils of it's surroundings and plan accordingly, no other random animal swoops in to save the poor fella. He's toast. That's the miracle of Thanksgiving that we all too frequently forget. The kindness shown to our ancestors was uniquely human. It was humble, not boastful; caring, not selfish; and most importantly, it was a gift, not a loan.
So what is true thanksgiving? It isn't a day, or a meal. It isn't Thursday afternoon football games just meaningless enough to ensure that there won't be any post-tryptophan sportscenter guilt. Instead, I think it has more to do with a mindset that we should all challenge ourselves to uphold on a daily basis. "Well Jamey, what is that grandiose, pompous statement supposed to mean?"
Well, I think it means that we all should pay attention to those around us that "get it." There's always someone in your life that provides you with the example of a spirit of thanks. So, here is one of mine:
My dad came from very humble beginnings. His young life was marked with sacrifice while excess was rare, if ever. The thought to treat oneself simply didn't make a blip on the radar. Niceties were for others. That's why I always loved to study my dad's appreciation for the seemingly marginal things in 20th century life. When I was about 5 years old my dad bought a car. In true Dale Nolan fashion, he scoured the classifieds to find the right model to suite his transportation needs, budget, and totalitarian emphasis on reliability. After patient consideration, he went down the road less traveled. He purchased, with cash, an aggressively beige 1982 Toyota Corona station wagon. To me, and to my then teenaged siblings, this car represented a rolling pocket protector. The headlights resembled nerdy wire rimmed glasses, the exterior paint (beige) was a vacuum of auto personality, and it was a station wagon, for God's sake. The tiny four cylinder engine was just powerful enough to reach highway speeds, or run a weedwacker if the grass wasn't too thick. And upon ignition, it emitted a thunderous roar similar to that of a dust buster.
All that aside, it was the definition of practical. It had space. It was economically priced, and with the price of gas in the 1980's, you could run it up and down the roads all month long for about the price of a Clark bar.
But it wasn't just the purchase of the car that puzzled me so. My dad LOVED this car. Of all the inanimate objects in the world to heap affection on, I couldn't understand his fascination with this excessively unfascinating vehicle. Every Saturday, especially during pollen season, I would watch, and sometimes help, him wash and wax the little doll in true OCD fashion. He would pull it into the yard, take a few minutes to check it for pine sap, then break out all the necessary accoutrement to treat this pauper like a princess. He would then spend the next few hours washing it multiple times, waxing it to streak-less perfection, and finally giving the engine a once over to ensure all the fluid levels were up to par. It was a love affair inexplicable to anyone but he and the car, which he named "the little doll."
He kept this car for the next twenty five years or so. Over that time it developed quirks, like the fact that once it was cranked you could safely remove the key, if necessary, to retrieve anything you needed from a locked glove compartment. Somewhere around the 240,000 mile mark, the odometer stopped working. That was in the early 90's. I have to imagine that when he finally parted ways with the little doll, it probably had something like 750,000 miles on it. And no, that's not an exaggeration. There was, however, a brief period where the little doll saw some down time. In the early 90's he bought a second corona station wagon. It was a fancier 1984 model that was a noticeable upgrade when you considered the automatic transmission and blue paint job. But, it never had his heart. It was an also ran. The funny part is that for a brief period he would trade off driving the cars. During the summer he drove the little doll because it had A/C and no heat, and during the winter he drove the also ran because it had heat, but no A/C.
It took me until adulthood to truly understand my dad's motives. He wasn't crazy. And God knows he wasn't disillusioned about what constituted a cool car. Before he and mom married, dad saved all of his money and bought a 1957 Chevy Belair 2 door hard top, the cherry-est of all rides. No, his love for this car was due to one truly fascinating fact: He was thankful. He was thankful for the fact that he'd identified a vehicle that he could afford that would meet his NEEDS. And he treated it with the heart of a truly thankful person. He humbly cared for it in a fashion not of it's own deserving. He placed so much emphasis on this car not because of what it was, but for what it represented. This simple car was all he needed. No longer was his life faced with the hardships of decisions on how to stretch a nickel or handmade clothes. No, he was in a place in his life where he understood that while he could do more, all that he was required to do was to painstakingly care for what he had. He didn't have to struggle to piece together his means. Why then, would he ever care for anything he had less than completely?
It was a powerful lesson. The grateful and humble nature of thanks for all he had was not one that most generation X'ers could ever understand. He didn't spend his time looking at others for his cues of social norm and competition. For him, the competition was complete. He'd won. His struggle was over, and there was no more simple and content way to celebrate his victory than to love and care for a car whose worth only he was able to recognize. Maybe that's what he always wanted. Humble beginnings scream for recognition. Maybe there was a person in his life who reached out to him and recognized his beauty and worth when he needed it most. Maybe that's what we all should be thankful for. Maybe we should constantly focus on those around us that saw our worth and fostered our growth through friendship, mentor ship, and unexplainable love. And maybe, the best way for me to teach my kids about thanksgiving is show them that understanding the contrast of who you were and who you are is only half as important as recognizing those who selflessly helped you along the way.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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