Ruminations-A Memorable Thanksgiving

This is somethng I wrote in 2021, recounting the very memorable and meaningful Thanksgiving I took part in as poor gradual students sharing all of our resources to have a diverse Thanksgiving.

I love Thanksgiving. All of it. From the food to the time of the season. The change of season from Fall to Winter is especially poignant as the weather becomes colder and the land takes a deserved rest. The spectacular foliage color spectacle signals the end of the time for growth and the beginning of the time for the earth to rest and rejuvenate. It also signals the time for people  to stay indoors and appreciate the warmth of home and hearth. It is a time of respite and recovery.

One of the most memorable Thanksgiving I had ever spent was, ironically, not with family or close friends, but with some strangers in the basement of a sterile institutional building.

Thanksgiving is an awkward time for gradual students, they are in the midst of the push towards the end of classes, ongoing research, performing never ending experiments, or writing interminably. It is a slight four days off, but really just one day off as most gradual students assiduously put their noses to the grindstone on the other three days, trying to make up for lost time that aren’t really lost and only take Thanksgiving Day off. Some take Thanksgiving Day  off because everything in town is closed and they are having to fend for themselves. It was during this situation that my friends Rick and Joy came up with a grand plan. Rick was a doctoral candidate at Georgia Tech, as was I, and Joy is married to Rick. They both matriculated at University of Illinois for undergrad, so we had something in common which created an instant bond. They lived in the married student housing buildings just north of the Georgia Tech main campus.

Architecturally, the buildings were plain ugly, but they served their purpose well for the families that lived there. The institute own the buildings and the rent was reasonable. They were probably built in the 1970’s as the lack of character suggested a utilitarian intent; that is, no thought was given to the aesthetics, both interior and exterior. This was as close to a building in a Soviet Gulag as I could have imagined.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, Rick came to me and asked if I was doing anything for Thanksgiving. I frankly had not thought that far ahead. My parents were overseas and I was maybe planning on going out to a restaurant that was open and just grab a meal there. Having spent my first Atlanta Thanksgiving eating a chili dog, onion rings, and a Frozen Orange in the TV room of The Varsity, any hot meal is a good Thanksgiving meal. Rick said that he and Joy were going to host a potluck Thanksgiving feast with their neighbors in married student housing, and would I like to join them. I leapt at the chance.

The ground rules were that they were going to make the turkey and everyone else brought a dish from their country. The vast majority of the married American student couples had plans to go home, so the people who said yes were foreign gradual students. There were a few other single electrical engineering gradual students that joined in the festivities. I had no idea what to expect, and I suspect, neither did they.

That Thursday came and I schlepped my single guy contribution to the feast. I don’t remember what I brought, it might be alcohol, or it might be store bought goodies, this was way before I cooked for real, and had discovered food programming on cable. As I entered the basement of the common area in the married student housing, the smells wafting from the room guided me to the right place. I was a bit early but there were a few dishes already sitting on the large tables in the center of the room. A few of the neighbors were there, politely nodding hello and perhaps wondering what they had gotten themselves into. I set my meager contributions on the table and went into the kitchen. Rick and Joy had hedged their bets and made a few traditional Thanksgiving side dishes, just in case. They shouldn’t have worried. As time wore on, more people appeared, until the tables were groaning under the weight of the accumulated goodies. The conversations became livelier as the time for indulging drew closer, the kids became used to the strangers and all shyness went away as they worked hard at their playing.

I don’t remember all that was served, but there were dishes from all around the globe: Chinese, Korean, Indian, Icelandic, French, Lebanese, Greek, etc. It was a global smorgasbord. When the time came to partake, no one was a stranger, everyone jumped at the chance to serve some of their dishes to their new friends. The sound of conversation grew louder as everyone was describing their dishes as well as articulating the traditions behind their dishes. It was obvious that everyone took seriously their mission of introducing their cultural heritage to their friends and took great care in thinking about this strange American tradition of Thanksgiving and relating it back to their cultures.

I remember that not much food was left after the crowd was done. Everyone had that fat and happy warm after glow that can only result from great gluttony. Even the children were slowed to a mere trot by that meal. The conversations continued to flow, some were about our research work, much of it was about making it all work here in a foreign country, and the challenges of living in a completely different culture and social norms. The few Americans tried to explain American football and why the Detroit Lions always played on Thanksgiving Day, neither one of those topics went anywhere as everyone tried to draw analogies with sports from their own countries in an effort to make heads or tails out of watching large steroid filled men bash each other, continually falling, and getting back up just to have the same things happen again.

The party broke up in the early evening if I remember correctly. I have since colored that memory in the soft sepia tones as one of the best experiences of my life, so the memories are fuzzy, besides it has been decades since I was in gradual school.

I do remember making my way home with an enhanced appreciation for my fellow humans, regardless of our differences in cultures, loving our commonalities in our humanity, and the beauty of the experience of sharing food, conversation, and amity.

That was perhaps the perfect exemplification of the spirit of Thanksgiving. That afternoon in the basement of the Georgia Tech married student housing showed me a glimpse of what could be if we saw one another as individuals with significant differences which we can easily bridge on a one-on-one basis. It is the memories of those times that gives me hope for today.