This year’s Thanksgiving celebration will be a quiet one, here on the Triple L. I’m roasting a small turkey, but there won’t be a big sit-down gathering–everybody, including me, is just too tuckered out for that. There has been so much activity on this place over the last year–two separate construction projects, and now changing the downstairs area into an office and studio–all good stuff, to be sure. You’d better believe I’m thankful, but I’m also ready for things to calm down, as my mother used to say, “to a dull roar.”
So I’m planning to sit by the fire a lot, and make a long gratitude list. Maybe I’ll watch a movie or two–I love the old ones, from the 30s and 40s. In Northport we got 4 channels–ABC, NBC, CBS + the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company). There were a lot of fishing shows on, it seemed to me, and things like Wild Kingdom. (I’m still trying to get over some of the images I saw on that show.)
It was a long wait until Sunday night, when Bonanza would be on. But once in a while, with the holidays approaching, I’d turn on the TV set and tumble right into something wonderful–like the June Alison/Peter Lawford version of Little Women. Or Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn in absolutely anything. Or Cary Grant, an angel disguised as a bishop’s assistant, with snow flakes gathering on the shoulders of his long overcoat…or Bing Crosby wearing a priest’s collar and singing as only he could sing…
Call me old fashioned. Or just plain old.
They don’t make movies like that anymore.
