Thanksgiving
Memories, 2020
Thanksgiving
in Rockport, 2006
L to R:
Marty, Charlie Coulbourn, Sam Coulbourn Flores, Laura Coulbourn, Mac McCarthy,
Mark Coulbourn and Jennifer McCarthy
Celebrating
Thanksgiving in a pandemic is certainly different.
In my
86 years, I’ve seen some interesting, and delightful Thanksgivings.
As a
kid, my brother Dick and I usually skipped everything but the rolls with
butter. And the pie. Eventually I was forced to eat my Grandmother’s cushaw,
and later I grew to enjoy this southern favorite.
Then
there were four Thanksgivings in the huge mess hall at the Naval Academy, with
plenty of turkey and stuffing and vegetables for 3600 hungry midshipmen.
The first
Thanksgiving cooked by Martha Jane, my new bride, was in our apartment on East Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach CA. It was delightful and delicious. In preparation for the
day I had rented a television so we could watch the Macy’s parade and the
football games, which came on three hours too soon. That was in 1957, when
television was black and white and grainy.
There
were too many Thanksgivings when Marty cooked dinner and served it to our kids,
John, Mark and Susan, while I ate with other officers in the wardroom half a
world away, on a destroyer in the South China Sea, or a destroyer or ammunition
ship in the Mediterranean, or steaming submerged at 300 feet through the
Straits of Gibraltar in a ballistic missile submarine. Also, there was the Thanksgiving as we steamed
into the Tonkin Gulf to begin naval gunfire missions in the closing days of the
Viet Nam war.
The
Navy was always very generous in providing the turkey and trimmings to ships at
sea. I remember when we were steaming alongside the supply ship and tons of
food were being shipped over in nets between ships. A few sailors decided to
divert some of the food below decks for their private use. One threw a large
frozen turkey down a hold and knocked another sailor out. Frozen turkeys can be
lethal!
In
Iran Martha Jane prepared marvelous dinners with help from Mehrab, our Persian
houseboy. Our guests, British and Iranian, as well as American, enjoyed this American
tradition, with bits of Persian style. (E.g.: Mehrab put all the dishes and
plates of food on the kitchen floor to serve them.) We had dinners for American
and Italian guests and family at our home in Naples, Italy, and Maria, our
maid, added Italian flavor. One guest, Father Quentin, an American priest
living in Rome, gave the blessing, and then surprised us all with his
phenomenal appetite, as if he had not seen food before!
Lyudmila,
our Ukrainian maid in Moscow put a few unique Russian twists in two fine Thanksgiving
dinners in the USSR. We had British,
Swedish, Turkish, Japanese, and German guests to help us celebrate the original
Pilgrims’ feast in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Of course, we began by serving
each guest a tiny glass of iced vodka. We brought this custom back to America.
Our
three Thanksgivings in Japan always had Japanese and American guests, and
Kimiko-san helped Marty with bits of Japanese flavor. Guests at one dinner in
Sasebo, Japan drank a little too much sake.
Nanny with granddaughters Kit and Lisby in Rockport, 2007.
After
ten years living in other countries, it was great to have Thanksgiving back in
Washington, DC with family and friends. Then we moved to Rockport, MA and Marty
served more elegant dinners, but then our daughter Susan and daughter-in-law
Laura took over and served the meals, and Martha Jane brought the molded salad and
presided with Sam, our oldest grandson, in making the gravy.
Thanksgiving at Susan’s in Providence
Visiting
by Skype with Kit Mocarski, spending one year of her college in France, 2009.
(L to R: Laura, Charlie, Elizabeth and Marty Coulbourn, and Susan Mocarski.)
Marty and Sam make the gravy, Tiverton, RI, 2017
I’m thankful….that
we have just weathered and apparently overcome another challenge to our
republic. God knows, 11 states withdrew
from the Union because they didn’t like the assault on their way of life. But they returned.
A man
rose in Germany who sought to take over the whole world with Naziism, and other
men in Japan and Italy joined with a dream of a world ruled by fascism.
When
they were defeated, another group of men arose. They had been working since the middle of
the 19th century to create Communism, and with Hitler
defeated, this became the threat to take over the world… first eastern Europe,
then Asia, with eyes set upon the United States of America as the prize. Then the USSR imploded, and communism began
to wither away.
And
then a strange thing happened to America.
A billionaire celebrity from New York who had been trying to get the
world’s attention actually found the right buttons to push to attract the
attention of millions of Americans and got elected President. Those who had been aware of this man’s
ragged, miserable history of misogyny, self-dealing, money-grubbing dishonesty
knew this was a mistake, but still, here he was, Leader of the Free World. Here
he was, insulting our historic allies, cooing cozily in the proximity of
Vladimir Putin and rejecting international agreements and wiping out
environmental regulations.
And
then came the Covid 19 pandemic. This
fast-talking con-man from Queens had no idea how to lead. His self-centeredness and self-delusion
kept him from addressing the nation as a leader would and gathering the best
and the brightest to mount an attack on this scourge. His every urge was to
dodge this challenge and hope that it would mysteriously “go away’. This challenge was too much for a man who was
false to the core, and it brought him down.
Still,
more Americans than ever before voted to give this man four more years to wreck
our republic, to make possible the dreams of Hitler, Tojo, Mussolini, Lenin,
Stalin and Putin.
Fortunately,
even more—nearly six million more—voted to restore America to its democratic
republic.
And that
is worth our thanks this Thanksgiving!
God Bless America!
Sam Coulbourn
Rockport, MA
