Now that Thanksgiving is coming up I like to share the story of my most memorable dinner celebrating this day of remembrance giving thanks to God by those early colonists and Native Americans. And the particular dinner I’m so fond of remembering had much in common with those early celebrants.

My guns and fishing poles had supplied much of the food during the time my grandparents and I lived on the mining claim here in the Kern River Valley before the lake went in. This particular Thanksgiving morning I took my shotgun and soon bagged six quail. Taking them back to the cabin, I skinned, gutted and washed them thoroughly. My grandmother made a dressing of sage and cornmeal in a cast iron pot and placed the six quail breasts on top of the dressing then put it in the oven of our wood cook stove. She covered the pot just long enough to steep the quail thoroughly then removed the top in order to brown them and form a thin crust on the dressing.

Once the stove had done its job, the quail breasts were a marvelous, golden brown with the tender white meat steeped in the juices from the dressing. With this as the main course complimented with mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob and homemade apple and pumpkin pies it was as good as it was simple. I took special pride in my ability to supply the main ingredient, giving me a sense of self-worth contributing what I could to our family’s welfare and came to appreciate what those early colonists had to thank God for.

It is a pity the great majority of children today will not have the chance I had of living in an environment where the opportunities I was given to think well of myself and develop self-esteem are denied them; opportunities where hunting and fishing are not “sporting events” but contribute to the family welfare as a necessity of life. The six years I spent as a boy living on the mining claim without any indoor plumbing or electricity also provided me the experience I needed to understand what those early colonists faced and preach simplicity in living to others without any illusions about how harsh living such a life can be. While other children dreamed of getting a bicycle, I dreamed of getting a power chainsaw and exploding wedges. I never got them, but I did become the first kid in the valley to have his own car. Being in high school by that time, a car became my priority and it also made it possible for me to become the very first “Junior Custodian” for old Kernville Elementary and earning the first real paycheck of my life: $35 a month; a princely sum for a kid back then that was used to earning a dollar an hour with hammer and saw, pick and shovel when I could find the work.

Back in the old days when jobs were plentiful and it seemed lawyers were fewer children had to do “chores” that were really work; the kind that required sweat and muscle-power. My being raised a generation behind even my own for the most part with kerosene lamps and outhouses I was well equipped for manual labor, and my grandparents were advocates of the Scripture “If any not work, neither shall they eat.” But Biblical morality has little part of the America in which we now live; that America has all but disappeared in which the Bible was still a prominent part of our society having been the primary textbook of America from the very beginning of our nation and children were taught good manners and civilized speech both at home and at school.

Harper Lee understood the “modern” movement of the 30s passed from the universities down to the schools of the time that “innovative designs in teaching” did not include making the schools places where the teaching of parents at home was being encouraged in the schools. So the suggested “compromise” by Atticus to little Scout was she and her father would continue doing as they had always done at home contrary to her teacher and Scout would jump through the hoops of her teacher while at school; the go along to get along routine so many of us have faced at one time or another.

As a teacher beginning in the 60s in Watts I was confronted by this same dismal failure of the schools to educate children and young people. Eventually I came to realize the truth of Harper Lee’s criticism of the universities and schools of her time, and I began to say of America’s schools there could not have been a better system designed for failure had it been done intentionally. The proof of this abounds by the lack of civilized good manners and proper speech all about us.

With Thanksgiving Day coming like an express train at my age (the time does fly now whether I’m having a good time or not) it reminds me of how Norman Rockwell celebrated the day with his Saturday Evening Post cover (November 24, 1951) of the little boy and his grandmother praying over their meal at a table in a restaurant while two young men are watching with curious expressions. I have the book by Fred Bauer published by Guideposts titled “The Faith of America.” Bauer’s book is filled with works by Rockwell including the one mentioned, but when I think of Norman Rockwell’s America I realize I was born into an age where such faith was encouraged by the majority. Now, it seems a minority of the Devil’s followers has created an America celebrating illiteracy, perversion and vulgarity, uncivilized manners and speech, an America Norman Rockwell would not recognize as his America, the nation he showed such gratitude for.

The children of the Devil try to marginalize and even demonize Norman Rockwell and his America, they try to marginalize and demonize me and those like me. But I know the history of America, and I know the Bible and its history. America was a far better nation when Thanksgiving Day had the relevance attached to those early colonists, when the Bible was still the textbook of America and Norman Rockwell’s portraits of his America and mine were not ridiculed but displayed faith and held out hope for a better future.