Member-only story
Thanksgiving Eve in The Rug City
As our national day of Thanksgiving approaches, I have been thinking about previous Thanksgivings with my family, and I recall many wonderful memories: The Macys’ Parade on television, delicious and abundant food, warm conversations around the table, and various activities afterwards. Recently, though, another Thanksgiving memory has emerged, a memory that involves not Thanksgiving Day but Thanksgiving Eve.
Rarely do I hear anyone mention “Thanksgiving Eve.” We all talk about “Christmas Eve” and “New Year’s Eve,” but does anyone remember Thanksgiving Eve? I don’t think so. In our small community church in Clifton Park, New York, we used to have a Thanksgiving Eve service, but since so many people travel on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we now hold our celebration on Tuesday. So Thanksgiving Day itself gets all the glory, and Thanksgiving Eve is relegated to second-tier status. However, during a four-year period of my life, I have to admit that in many ways, I enjoyed my Thanksgiving Eves as much as I enjoyed my Thanksgiving Days.
In 1969, I graduated from Bishop Scully High School in Amsterdam, New York (the “Rug City”) and headed off to nearby Siena College in September of that year. Like most of my peers, I was a bit homesick at first, but I gradually adjusted to my new environment. During those first three months at college, we also did something almost…
