[Nyerges is the author of “How to Survive Anywhere,” “Extreme
Simplicity,” “Self-Sufficient Home,” “Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants,”
and other books. He conducts classes in practical self-reliance. He can be
reached at School of Self-Reliance, Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90401, or www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com.]
Black Friday. When I
was a child 50 years ago, we never heard that word. Oh, it was around, and it seems to have taken on a heightened
life of its own in the decades that followed.
I can recall that in my world as a child – which was the
vastness of Pasadena – every store closed on Thanksgiving. The streets were
quiet, and you knew everyone was home preparing a meal, or they’d driven away
to some other town to visit relatives.
But commerce ceased. You were
pitied if you had no family, and you were looked down upon if you kept your
business open.
“Too bad that guy has to actually work on Thanksgiving,”
we’d hear my father say. Most
businesses were closed, and when my father realized that he
had no working batteries for a camera or flashlight, he’d send one of my older
brothers on a mad dash to find a store, any store, that was open and sold
batteries. There was no internet, and no easy way to figure out who was open
and closed unless you spent an hour on the phone. Suddenly, it wasn’t such a
bad idea to have a store open. Of
course, my father would be furious and he’d blame it on someone else for
forgetting to stock up on some batteries. Usually, my brother would be gone an
hour or two, but somehow managed to come home with the needed batteries.
Still, there seemed
something very special to demand of yourself that Thanksgiving be set aside for
family, for remembrance, for breaking the spell and monotony of work only and
working only for material goals. In the
United States, that used to be Sunday where people took the day off. In some areas, Sunday is still to the week
what Thanksgiving is to the year. For
example, try finding an open store in Utah on Sunday. Oh, you’ll find one, but not until you do a bit of searching.
Our values
determine who we are, and who we become. In this world, everything seems to
drive only the materialistic instincts.
Merchants cannot wait even a few extra hours to open their doors for the
Black Friday specials, and we are encouraged to rush out the door and buy now
before the next guy gets the discounted item offered to the first 50 folks who
push their way into the door.
The mindset is
rampant in our society. A natural
hillside, and lush trees on a lot, are described as non-performing real
estate. Relaxing on a Sunday
is thought of as being lazy.
Studying esoteric literature is regarded sometimes as impractical. We are fast becoming a nation of non-thinkers, and it is usually (but not
always) when we break out of our routine and out of our comfortable box of
thinking that we rise to who we really are as spiritual beings, and live lives
which reflect some higher goal.
I want a low price
and a deal just like the next guy, but I am not willing to do anything to get that deal. I regard
Thanksgiving day as nearly sacred, the closest thing we have to national holy
day where we attempt to ponder who we are, what we are, what we did right, what
we did wrong, what we need to do next.
To quickly eat a slice of turkey and then some cranberry, and rush out
the door to fight the mobs to get a deal is nearly sacrilegious in my thinking.
I have both good
and bad memories mixed into Thanksgiving. By my teens, our family Thanksgiving
gatherings were crowded, loud, raucous events that started the night before and
included the whole weekend. Yes, there
was the prayer that my mother insisted upon, and there were moments of quiet
reflection. My mother began forcing each of us to say what we were thankful
for, and with close to 20 people in a room, that could take a while. But then,
food and wine and beer was served, and the “conversation” was more like
non-stop yelling, while the TV played a football game in the next room at the
highest possible volume.
No wonder I got to
the point where I told my parents I would not be there on Thanksgiving. I didn’t try to make them feel bad by giving
them all my reasons, but I did come the next day with my wife and we’d sit
quietly and talk for awhile when the mob was gone. At first, my father called me a bad son for not showing up on
Thanksgiving, but eventually he enjoyed the more thoughtful visits.
This year, I went
to a local park with a small group and we together shared Native American
skills that the east coast Indians would have taught the starving pilgrims of
the Plymouth Rock colony. We taught about wild plants, and making fire, and
weaving with natural fibres, and weaponry, and painting with natural
minerals. Yes, we had some snacks, but
it was not about food.
It has taken a long
time to find what I consider a better way to commemorate this very special day.
It was thoughtful and quiet and insightful while our small group learned and
talked together. We shared the myths and the realities about the people at that
“first Thanksgiving,” and looked at how the Indians were thanked for their
generosity. There’s a lot buried just
beneath the surface that is so relevant to each of us today that it’s a shame
more of us don’t open our encyclopedias and explore these American roots.
Like so much of
American history, there are plenty of myths, and plenty of facts. And like so
many of American holidays, commercial interests seems bent on convincing us that
“buying stuff” is somehow synonymous with commemorating the special day.
1 comment:
Beautiful post.
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