Midwest Memo
Thanks
by Alan Shultz

Back in my high school years I had a story I used to tell far too often about a particular dinner I had at my friend Paul's house.

Paul lived "up the hill" in the affluent part of town midst wide lawns and Tudors and Colonials of brick and timbers, landscaped yards, and good taste. Paul's mother was an interior designer and their home was particularly elegant and attractive.

My friendship with Paul was one that stopped at the street curb. We would meet on bicycle or at the movie theater or the tennis court. We never wound up inside each other's house. That was just how it was.

Most rules wind up with exceptions and it happened one Sunday evening that dinner and I arrived at Paul's house at about the same time. After some negotiating between Paul and his mother at the kitchen door, I was invited inside.

All these years later, I still remember a certain awkwardness about that invitation. Dinner was in the dining room at an elegant table full of china and sterling. It wasn't possible to simply pull up a chair and join the family. A table setting was added, napkin and water goblet fetched. I remember it being elegant but I also remember that it was all just a tad complex.

Formal dining involves lots of serving pieces, lots of utensils and lots of passing. That's what I remember most about that evening. Condiments or sauces or little plates of this or that were being passed around far more than in my everyday experience. What was missing, however, based on my point of reference, was food.

That's right, my story, the story I told and retold after being a drop-in guest at Paul's family's dinner involved my observation that their dinner lacked a main course, something to sink your teeth into. Pickles in pickle dishes and olives on tiered cut glass trays and tiny presentations of unfamiliar food groups, that's what was passed around the table that evening. The meat and potatoes that I was used to just never showed up that night.

And so my story, my relating of that evening meal revolved around what I considered was lacking at that table. I would describe all the formality and fancy presentation with the punch line that there was no real food to eat.

Now this dinner I describe took place some 40 years ago. So why do I carry the memory with me still?

Frankly, to this day, I stand aghast at my own lack of gratitude for the hospitality extended to me by Paul's family.

On that particular evening, at that particular dining table, I had the opportunity to be grateful for any number of things. I was hosted as a guest. I was included in the conversation. I was fed. I was treated kindly. Yet, despite all the hospitality that was extended to me, I left that table recounting the meal in terms of what I didn't experience. I turned an unplanned moment of abundance into a story of lack.

Thankfully, I learned from this lesson. And so the dinner I made a joke of so many years ago has become an "a-ha" moment in my life.

I approach this year's Thanksgiving Day table with the knowledge that my blessings sometimes go unacknowledged and unappreciated. But I also come knowing something else. I know that reflection gives me the opportunity to be grateful for abundance that's scooted by me without recognition.

Best wishes to all our readers for this wonderful American tradition of giving thanks.