The other image is me as a damned tired Yankee private after four nights of sort-of-sleeping on the ground, and four days of marching, doing sham fighting over twenty miles of trails in the Howling Wilderness. My little Honda Civic and the Payday candy bar I’d stashed therein never looked so good or tasted so sweet.
So with that introduction, here is Terre’s Thanksgiving Reflection:
“The feral cats who live in these woods
hiss and howl if I look at them, and dodge away. Good. That's part of their
job, to not be too friendly. They keep the squirrels under control in the pecan
orchard and shoo the birds out of the muscadines and scuppernongs. Occasionally
I put some food out if they look too lean, but I do not want them dependent.
This morning, I separated out from this great bird, the liver and lights, heart and neck. I put them on to simmer in a little pot until it all fell to pieces with the poke of a fork, and poured it over some of the dry food. I let the whole thing cool before carrying it out to where I always put out water for the feral cats.
I can see their tails lashing and curling over the unique bounty. Their matriarch stands aside, disdainful of the handout. I saw her with a bunny early this morning, and watched the whole pack knocking squirrels out of trees in yesterday's rain. They do not need this feast, because they work and provide for themselves quite well. The half-grown ones climb higher in the trees than the adults can, knocking squirrels to ground into waiting jaws, then coming down for their share.
Nature red in tooth and claw.
As we celebrate plenty, in a culture that has tipped over into greed and competitive consumption, think also of those who came to this land unprepared, who recorded one winter as The Starving Time, and survived on the humanity of natives, and on hard work.
Like the feral cat outside my window, with the bunny in her jaws, our history is not always pretty. But it's ours. And has something to teach us.”
I asked Terre if I could borrow that short essay for my blog because the feral cats remind me of the early Texas Rangers I wrote about in A Different Country Entirely. Needed and appreciated by grateful civilians, but sometimes you had to ignore the bunny in their jaws.
As for my own after-Thanksgiving post, take a gander at my two grandsons together on our backporch last week. Little Rory is into rolling balls and crawling right now, and his cousin Jackson is all over Thomas the Train these days. But there shall come a time when Grandpa will get them both into Civil War duds with drum sticks in their hands and drums on their hips, beating a marching cadence for me and their dads and Marvin (Rory’s Mama Meredith passing as a male soldier). Hopefully, that'll happen one day while I'm still on the green side of the grass.
This morning, I separated out from this great bird, the liver and lights, heart and neck. I put them on to simmer in a little pot until it all fell to pieces with the poke of a fork, and poured it over some of the dry food. I let the whole thing cool before carrying it out to where I always put out water for the feral cats.
I can see their tails lashing and curling over the unique bounty. Their matriarch stands aside, disdainful of the handout. I saw her with a bunny early this morning, and watched the whole pack knocking squirrels out of trees in yesterday's rain. They do not need this feast, because they work and provide for themselves quite well. The half-grown ones climb higher in the trees than the adults can, knocking squirrels to ground into waiting jaws, then coming down for their share.
Nature red in tooth and claw.
As we celebrate plenty, in a culture that has tipped over into greed and competitive consumption, think also of those who came to this land unprepared, who recorded one winter as The Starving Time, and survived on the humanity of natives, and on hard work.
Like the feral cat outside my window, with the bunny in her jaws, our history is not always pretty. But it's ours. And has something to teach us.”
I asked Terre if I could borrow that short essay for my blog because the feral cats remind me of the early Texas Rangers I wrote about in A Different Country Entirely. Needed and appreciated by grateful civilians, but sometimes you had to ignore the bunny in their jaws.
As for my own after-Thanksgiving post, take a gander at my two grandsons together on our backporch last week. Little Rory is into rolling balls and crawling right now, and his cousin Jackson is all over Thomas the Train these days. But there shall come a time when Grandpa will get them both into Civil War duds with drum sticks in their hands and drums on their hips, beating a marching cadence for me and their dads and Marvin (Rory’s Mama Meredith passing as a male soldier). Hopefully, that'll happen one day while I'm still on the green side of the grass.
Finally, on top of all the other family thanks I had this Thanksgiving, I’m tossing out one more, without an illustration, an omission for which you'll be glad.
I was at a reenactment near Houston the weekend before Thanksgiving, camping, soldiering, and peddling my books. The first cold night I made my old man stumbling trip to the plastic port-a-can at 4:00 am in the darkest dark. Boy, was I surprised and oh-so-grateful that when I pulled the door open to start the ritual of doffing coat, vest and suspenders, and worrying over the chance of my car keys leaving my trouser pocket to fall into you-know-where, a LED light in the ceiling turned on automatically. Unexpected light in time of need is joy, and I was thankful.
This post also marks my blog site passing the 20,000 views mark. Thanks to each of you for that.
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