Saturday, November 26, 2016

THANKSGIVING: A diversity of celebrations

What a variety of Thanksgiving celebrations I heard about! Some people left the cooking to others: one family I know bought everything premade from Wegman's and another had their feast at the Mendenhall Inn (they gave it rave reviews).
One fellow spent his Thanksgiving eating with friends instead of family. Another said the highlight of his Thanksgiving dinner was reminiscing about the 1970 Avon Grove High School basketball team, which won the state championship (his brother was on the team). He said that after graduating, the alumni stayed in shape  and went on to beat the high school team at homecoming for the next several years.
I spent Thanksgiving in Perkasie, Bucks County. A couple there have family members over for Thanksgiving every year and then shut up the house and head to their place in Vermont for the skiing season. There were 20 people at the table (and two happy dogs wandering around underfoot) and endless platters of food; my strategy this year was to take a tiny portion of everything being offered. 
On the way up we took the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which is in the process of being widened to three lanes (a $189 million project funded using tolls), but for variety and amusement we took the long way home (without GPS assistance) and spotted such oddities as a typewriter sales and repair shop and a cafĂ© named The Abyss. Highly entertaining!
The road trip also taught us something about religion: we saw a sign in front of Lutheran church giving its times for Mass. I thought only Roman Catholic churches used that name for their divine services, but a little Internet research showed us that certain Protestant churches do as well.

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