A Light In The Stable
An original oil on canvas, 18" X 24"
( click on image to enlarge )
The American tradition of celebrating the harvest season, on the annual holiday
that we call Thanksgiving, is here again. Most of us who have grown up in this tradition,
have probably accumulated mixed memories of their past celebrations of this holiday,
a day which is intended to strengthen family ties, as we give thanks for being together,
enjoying the food which sustains us. Too often these days, the memories have become
nothing more than boring, family dinners followed by televised football games. And
for some of us, the celebration has sometimes resembled a comical ode to gluttony.
I recall that Truman Capote wrote a story of his memorable Thanksgiving, but that
was a tale of a lonely and melancholy childhood.
The memory I most often recall, when I think of Thanksgiving, is of an
unexpectedly eventful day, way back when I was still in college. I was home for the
holiday, and we were all invited to dinner at the farm house of an aunt and uncle,
who lived about an hour from town. Their lakeside home, with the surrounding,
autumn woodlands, was an idyllic, story-book setting for a traditional Thanksgiving
celebration. That day was crisp and cold, but there was a warm, cozy fire in the
fireplace, and our host added a fresh log to the fire whenever the flames were
burning low.
Along about mid-day, we all sat down to a wonderful holiday feast, with a
turkey and all the trimmings. And then as we sat savoring all of the flavors of our
well-filled, dinner plates, we noticed that some beautiful, big, fluffy snow-clusters,
had started falling outside, drifting softly past the windows, and somehow perfecting
the image of the ideal Thanksgiving scene.
By the time we had finished our meal, and began to question whether to have
desert immediately or save it for later on, we could see that the snow storm had
increased in intensity, painting the fields white, and continuing to fall so heavily
that it was becoming difficult for us to see the distant trees. It was getting dark
but we could see that our cars were already covered with a fairly thick blanket
of snow. So, there was an immediate change of our plans for the evening. Six
of us wanted to try and risk driving back to town that night. Deserts would be
wrapped up and sent home with us, as we were leaving.
After two of the cars were cleaned off and warmed up, we set off from the
farm, with windshield wipers already fighting a loosing battle against the buildup
of the accumulating, icy crystals. The snow was already deep and it was getting
deeper by the minute, as we forged our way slowly to the main road toward town.
Once we were on to the more, heavily traveled roadway, we began to see that
driving conditions were getting seriously hazardous. A number of motorists had
slid off into the roadside ditch and become hopelessly stuck, where they had
abandoned their cars. Such scenes became more and more frequent as we
crawled our way forward through the blinding snow storm. And then one of
our cars did a scary spin-out.
A hasty decision was made to park one of the cars at the roadside, and for
all of us to go the rest of the way to the city in one car. A set of tire-chains was
applied to the rear wheels of the heavier car, and then with the added weight of
all six of us together, we set out again, through the blinding snow. It was still very
slippery going, but perhaps we had better traction, because we continued to
pass many stuck cars whose owners had given up and abandoned them in
the drifts.
After a long, slow and tense slog through the storm we reached the city,
but the streets were still treacherous going. Motorists had turned the snow into
icy mounds of slush which had traffic in a tangle of fender-bender encounters.
One of our tire chains came off, and someone snatched it and absconded with
it before our intrepid driver could get back and retrieve it, but we did manage
to make it home without further incident.
The next morning, the blizzard was gone and the sun was beginning to peek
through, but the city looked like a deep icy, snow-draped scene from David
Lean's film of Dr. Zhivago. After the snow plows had worked on the major
roadways for a while, the car which had been left behind was dug out of the
drifts and retrieved without damage.
Over the decades that have passed since that event, and the dozens of
Thanksgiving holidays which have come and gone, I don't believe that I have
ever experienced a sudden snow storm of such intensity, and of such deep
accumulation, in such a short period of time, as the one we experienced
that night.
For the three of us who now still remain, from that adventure so long
ago, any mention of a Thanksgiving celebration always calls to mind that
famous snow to remember. It remains forever intertwined with our thoughts
of the family gathered around a Thanksgiving table.
The painting above is one I had shown in a previous entry, in this blog,
about a decade ago, but I was reminded of it when I was writing this entry,
so I decided that it might be a good accompaniment for this memory tale.
The idea of lantern light in a barn on a cold winter evening, still has a mystery
and traditional symbolism for the holiday season.
