Henrietta Hay's Column

Each year on Thanksgiving Day I suddenly realize, "My gosh. It's time to start Christmas shopping. With my kids far away, I should be mailing stuff next week." That does bad things to my stress level. So this year I am thinking about it as I write, a couple of weeks ahead of time--not shopping, you understand, just thinking about it.

Cecil Adams in his priceless book called "More of the Straight Dope" sets us straight on this holiday. "What we now think of as the original Thanksgiving took place in the fall of 1621 at the Plymouth colony, with the Pilgrims and some 90 Wampanoag Indians on hand to chow down, play volleyball, and exchange native diseases."

Thanksgiving did not become a formal holiday until Mrs. Hale became editor of Godey's Lady's Book. In 1846 she launched a campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, doubtless so people would have an excuse to eat the luscious, high-cholesterol food she described in loving detail in her magazine. In 1864 Abe Lincoln finally proclaimed the last Thursday in November as THE day. Franklin Roosevelt changed the date in 1939, but whatever the day, late November is still set aside for overeating.

Somewhere along the way football got into the act. "Unknown," whoever he/she may be, is credited in one of my books of quotations as saying, "On Thanksgiving all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment--half-time. And, believe it or not, after some 60 years, my favorite Thanksgiving memories are of football games. I mean the real thing-taking place on a field, not the kind you watch on TV from the couch.

Colorado University did not have Folsom Field, artificial turf, an evangical coach or nationwide recruiting in the thirties, but we did have Whizzer White, silver and gold uniforms, players who graduated, and the C.U./D.U. football game on Thanksgiving Day. That game was the high spot of the year and took place in the old Merchants Park on south Broadway in Denver. The seats had splinters and the roof had huge holes, but none of that mattered. Of course, it would not have dared to snow that day anyway. It was THE game of the year for both schools.

Since I lived close to Boulder, I usually had friends who could not go home for the holiday staying with my family. To show how uncool (by today's mores) we were in those days, my dad would usually escort four or five coeds; each with a huge yellow mum pinned on her coat, to the game. We had a wonderful time, and C. U. usually won. That is the way I remember it. Probably people from D. U. remember it differently.

Merchants Park is long gone. Sometime along the way they built a big Montgomery Ward store on it. I have no idea what is there now. But it is like a Field of Dreams in reverse, not because they will come, but because they have gone, and I remember.

My mother was a wonderful cook and I can still taste those Thanksgiving dinners that were waiting for us. I'm not too proud to admit that she stayed home and cooked while we enjoyed the game. But I didn't know any better in those days, and she really didn't like football anyway.

My own early adventures with cooking a turkey were a far cry from the holiday dinners she cooked. In fact, my memory has mercifully blanked them out. I do have a friend, however, who tells of cooking her first turkey. The book just said to put the bird in the oven, so she tied the legs together and stuck it in. After about four hours she figured it should be done and took it out, only to find the underside strangely white. Now she knows the difference between the breast and the back of a bird and which side should be up in the oven.

There are many things I am thankful for this year: my family, my friends, this column, my health and the defeat of Amendments 12 and 16.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, and go ahead and eat all you want!