Thanksgiving in July

After living abroad for so many
years
nothing compares
to eating Southern cooking.

You get huge portions –
too much really,
you only have to abide
the ubiquitous presence
of sweetened tea
which is served over ice,
obviously cold.

My mother does a great dressing
using the soup of a boiled hen.
She hates duck and
generally
eschews capon drippings.

But since those that do imbibe
tend to drink
something nice from California
with their good meals,
I don’t mind
eating turkey and
dressing with
cranberry sauce
any time of the year,
especially during the dead of summer
when the cicadas sing
and you can loosen your belt just a notch
for pecan pie, scalding black coffee with chicory
and just the tinniest touch of amaretto on the side…
sitting out on the porch
in the early evening,
right before the
mosquitoes get really
worked-up,
with just an overhead
fan running.

**

Christmas Lights

This past year, I passed my first Christmas in the Deep South,
my first Christmas in the States for that matter,
in fifteen years.
I had registered for some post-graduate work and had no full-time lecturing position
so my wife and I eagerly set our own agenda for watching the holiday season
come and go.
Some started decorating right after Thanksgiving,
especially the larger business establishments and small, rural
towns and villages.
There was a Noel staccato burst about two weeks out and by the
week before St. Nick’s Day, Yes, Virginia, there was indeed a Santa Claus.
When all the public and private educational entities
had adjourned to celebrate the holidays,
all those who were going to decorate suddenly shot-their-wadding
like old-timey breech loading 12 gauge shotguns.
The vast majority put-up electric lights.
The vogue, the in-thing, the newest rage was plastic, inflatable Santas.
There were those who kept the minimalist approach.
There were those that created fully-lit helicopter pads and Learjet airplane landing strips on lawns and driveways.
The more affluent abodes sported wreathes on or over doors and window-lees, with no
blinking, twinkling illumination and definitely
no inflatable Wal-Mart Santas.
Boxing Day marked the rapid beginning of what would be a sudden-end to good ole
Thomas Edison’s contribution to Navidad.
By New Year’s Day, about ninety-nine percent of all decoration had vanished,
except for those who wait for Santa or
Jesus, electric lights and all,
year-round.