By CHARLES ANDREWS
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Of course, that means different things to different people. My family has gathered every year for 75 years at my cousin’s home in Tempe, AZ. Two of the cousins were adopted as children. Since they were born Native Americans, do they have any regrets about how welcoming the first Native Peoples were to those strange strangers from across the ocean? Maybe. I’ve never asked that question. But it clearly did not turn out well, that hospitality, for their ancestors.
Somehow, with the passing of some elders, I was “chosen” many years ago to be the one who offers the prayer before the meal. We usually have at least 25 people, sometimes twice that. Ages 1 – 100. It is a weighty assignment, and every year I ponder it mightily. What can I say to such a diverse group that won’t offend them but might make them rethink some things just a little? There are lifer military, hard-core church activists, and… it’s Arizona – some of them lean so far right they fall over when reaching for their keys. That prayer is a tightrope, but I love the challenge. And so far, I still get the dark meat I ask for.
I often bring up national or even world events that affect us all. But this year… so much going on, so much pain and suffering. How to “organize” it, and speak to it? Maybe this is the year it comes out, “We’re all here, we have food, let’s eat!” That would raise my stock among the youngest attendees, who can’t even hear me over the loud calling of their names by the mashed potatoes and gravy.
BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS
These are “trying times,” right now. Did you catch Ken Burns’ magnificent 12-hour doc on PBS, “THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION”? I think the episodes are still up.
This is not a dry, too-long history lesson. It brings to life times, locations, battles, and characters we all know little about, except their names. Such a complex, charismatic leader was George Washington. Ben Franklin. King George. Benedict Arnold. Abigail Adams. There is some live action recreation mixed in, but mostly paintings, and maps, and a long list of the very best actors alive lending their voices to make those words and the illustrations behind come alive.
Burns has often declared that in his work there are no sides, no political leanings, that he strives to present only the facts, leaving us to make up our own minds. Facts – something we lately find in short supply. Many in my Thanksgiving family would disagree on whether or not we are losing our democracy or entering a golden age for America. But that is greatly colored by “which facts” are behind your judgments.
I’ve always been a history and current events buff, but I have learned so much from Burns’ history lesson, and I am grateful for having some attitudes adjusted by the facts, and how it all fits together.
Mr. Burns, will you please come make a documentary on the history of Santa Monica? Though I know you will have trouble convincing people it is not wild fiction.
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Charles Andrews has lived in Santa Monica for 39 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or rebuke to him at therealmrmusic@gmail.com
