Herb's Thanksgiving '09

Ben was half way up the side of the rock face before Ricky could get his cigarette lighter out and fire up the stub of a cigarette. Herb had his camera up and he was moving through the leaves and underbrush looking for the right angle to get a shot of Benny as he ascended the giant rock. He already had dozens of photos of Benny climbing rocks and trees and the wall at the climbing place where Benny worked during the Summer. Benny was a monkey. He had a monkey tattoo’d on his shoulder and had little monkeys on the shelves surrounding his bed up a school. Lean and taut as a wire cable he went up the shear face of the rock like a fly on a window screen and once at the top he stood looking out over the valley. He was not even breathing hard.

Herb replayed the photos he had just taken on the tiny screen on the camera. He looked for his glasses so he could see them clearly but realized he had left them on the counter by the phone at home. When he got home again he would look at the photos and there was an excellent chance they would be mostly blurred and out of focus. Maybe there would be one or two that were ok. Maybe even one that is really good. That is the secret to being a good photographer, thought Herb, shoot lots and lots of pictures and maybe one would be good. The shotgun method. Digital photography has made everyone a pro. Herb thought he was pretty good. So does anyone who buys a digital camera.

He put the camera into his zip-up pocket and moved slightly down hill, out of the path of the smoke from Ricky’s cigarette. Ricky was dressed in his black combat boots and a sweatshirt with a hood that was up to conceal his identity from somebody-Lord knows who. Herb had had a hard time getting down the hill to the rock. He wished he’d thought to wear good boots like Ricky instead of the slick, old shoes he’d put on without a thought. Herb’d almost hit the dirt a dozen times on the way down. Benny and Ricky took turns catching his arm and keeping him upright. After Ricky’d finished his smoke he took out a Swiss Army knife and cut a stiff, thin staff made of iron wood. He trimmed the small branches and leaves off it and asked Herb how long to make it. Herb accepted the staff and the implicit message that came with it. He was getting old and slowing them down. But he was not upset with the gift. Just the opposite. He looked at his oldest son and tried to convey his appreciation for the gift without saying anything. Their ability to communicate had become crippled a long, long time ago. Words no longer worked. The staff worked to steady Herb on the hillside.

Each year at Thanksgiving whoever was eating dinner walked out onto the hills outside the house, sometime before dinner or sometime after. It was “the hike”. This year it was just Herb and Ricky and Benny. Certainly the old lady wasn’t going to come and Irma was busy fussing with the preparations for the feast. The weather was cooperative. It was ten degrees above normal for this time of year and the shallow sun gave out a sweet warmth through the leafless trees. So Herb and Ricky watched Benny climb for twenty or thirty minutes and then the three of them worked there way down the hollow to the side of a clear brook. It ran next to a chain link fence topped with barbed wire that was the border between the military reservation and the loose configuration of houses that made up Herb’s neighborhood. It was quiet on Thanksgiving Day. There was no rat tat tat from the gunnery range or thumping overhead from the helicopters. Herb and the boys were used to the racket and might not have noticed it anyway. The noise was more noticeable for its absence as they stood next to the gurgling water and Herb marveled at the peace he felt. He was feeling his age, but he was also feeling his experience and the strange inner peace that sometimes accompanied him when he was in the presence of his sons. After a short time it was time to go back to the house for the meal. They hiked up the bank and up to the road and then the last couple hundred yards back up to the house.

When they went in the side door the smells of Thanksgiving met them instantly. Turkey, pie, roasting vegetables. Ricky retreated to his room and his cell phone. Benny disappeared someplace. Herb sat next to Oma at the kitchen table where she was sitting watching Irma bounce from one chore to the next-from one platter to the next. Every few minutes Irma would assign her a task-to wash a pan or peel a piece of fruit or fold a half a dozen napkins. She was unable to successfully accomplish any of the work. Herb would intercede and help her to gracefully see her way to the end of each task. She could not find a kitchen towel to finish drying the pot she had washed for fifteen minutes. Herb gracefully took the sponge from her and completed the rest of the pans in the sink. He would tell her jokes and kibutz while he deftly relieved her of duties she would have had no trouble with only five years ago. She thought that she had finished each job and asked for more responsibility, which Irma readily assigned. She would start and Herb would finish. It was not possible for Herb to do this little dance with the old woman without considering his own age. He wondered how many years he had left before his own sons would be taking the lawn mower away in mid-lawn or his paint brush after he had coated half a wall? Or…would they be there at all… and would he start tasks hopelessly, never to finish?

The meal was ready, finally. Everyone mysteriously showed up in the kitchen and hands were lain upon the platters and the table heaped high. The groaning board was duly photographed for posterity and the seats were taken. The one time in the year that grace was surely said it was said in German. Oma honored with a job she could still (and always would) be able to perform flawlessly and without aid. We bowed our heads and listened to her say grace. When she was done Herb called order and delivered his own grace-the chamotsi- and everyone dug in. A flurry of activity ensued where platters and bowls flew back and forth like a Marx Brother’s comedy and everyone packed their faces. For an hour these five people ate and smiled and had everything in common. Herb especially leaned back in his chair, satisfied and Thankful.