Readers of this column may have discerned that I’m not too fond of the annual Thanksgiving holiday. What I may not have conveyed before now is that, in fact, I detest the very idea of holidays of all varieties, no matter whose they are or where they come from.
All days are created equal. Do you know any fundamental difference between New Years, Vaisakhi, Nián Jié and Nowruz? The first is a day that happens once a year. The second is a festival that starts on a day that happens once a year. The third is like the second but happens mostly the same. The fourth holiday is also.
To set days apart from one another is, in my opinion, not the worst thing you can do. It’s a symptom. People who feel the need to discriminate against days for not being holidays are like people who played with matches when they were 12. You have to watch them like a hawk now that they’re 65. They have a positive statistical probability of being serial killers, arsonists or adult “fire” persons.
Start discriminating against days, and you’ve started down a slippery slope. What next? Condiments? Are some condiments holier than others? This kind of picking and choosing is the origin of all evil in the world.
However, this year I was persuaded by one of our new editorial committee members (I won’t say who, to not single him out) to make an exception of this year’s inappropriately celebrated 24-hour period of thanks in the United States, by using the opportunity to find good things to say about various things and write them.
I’ll start with the betrothal of Charles Manson to his supporter-cum-fiancée Star. Can’t we all agree to see the beauty of this? How this man, long held down by the system, who never exactly killed anyone, could spend over four decades in prison, seriously letting himself go, and yet… and yet, finally at the age of 80, find his one true love. True, a love to not live happily after with except for conjugal visits that may or may not be permitted, but still.
The best news: There is no way Manson’s marriage could threaten traditional marriage, or any particular marriage, unless someone out there is bummed that Star, who will soon be hitched to Charley Boy, won’t be able to get hitched for a while. Of course, some past activities have threatened some specific marriages here and there, such as getting some marriage partners or whole families slaughtered, but those things happened on days past — and now is now.
Last week, I alluded to Arnold Abbot, the Fort Lauderdale nonagenarian who feeds homeless people. As of this morning, as I write this, he has been cited twice more for feeding hungry people. If Thanksgiving in America has ever been anything, it’s been our time to pig out and give thanks that we can because we aren’t starving (pass the turkey, pass the gravy). How sincere can our thanks be if no one is starving?
What if there were no hungry people in the world? How could we give thanks for not being hungry? It would be a triviality. There would be nothing special about it. “Thanks for this food.” “Why? You always have food.” “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”
So once again, thank you, Fort Lauderdale, for cracking down on this Arnold Abbot, or should I call him Arnold Benedict, the likes of whom would end Thanksgiving forever for everybody, if he got his way.
In a more sarcastic vein, I would like to offer up my profuse unfelt thanks to the Seattle City Council for approving funding for the Urban Rest Stop, homeless-youth street outreach, the University District Food Bank, developing homeless shelters, implementing recommendations of the Emergency Task Force on Unsheltered Homelessness and for committing to investigate the use of city-owned property for shelter spaces.
Thanks a bunch, city council, for making it that much harder to complain about you.