My Day

Just for today I am grateful that I live in paradise. This view of the city and our favorite old, 1941 ferry taken from Coronado Island.

Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a syndicated newspaper column entitled My Day from 1935 through 1962. Sometimes these columns were short because of her travels, other times they were longer if she had a moment extra to dictate her thoughts. Always the columns gave Mrs. Roosevelt a platform for her causes or a place to discuss key issues in her life. They were very influential with the women of America. But not in our household.

I was raised in a conservative, strongly anti-Roosevelt, Republican household. The word Roosevelt was never spoken. Issues of any sort were never discussed at our table. To keep the peace a topic of semi mutual interest was always the focus. Golf. “Par, birdie, birdie par…” or, what club you used for what shot from which green, or even what shots were made at the Old Blue Mound Country Club in Wisconsin could be the topic of discussion.

One sunny November afternoon, while letting the excesses of a humongous Thanksgiving dinner at grandmother’s apartment settle, the family was discussing Dewey’s chances of winning the upcoming election. Why would a four year old would remember this? Perhaps because I had never heard them talk anything but golf before much less about politics.

I do remember the polished old silver, the carefully ironed table cloth and giant napkins, the turkey, the marvelous dressing, and the old fashioned onions in a cream sauce that day. Oh, grandmother pulled out all the stops to make this a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. She kept the food cold in her tiny ice box. She made real minced meat to go in her mincemeat pies in the minuscule kitchen with an oven she had to prop shut with a broom. Her pumpkin pies with two kinds of whipped cream melted in your mouth.

After dinner there was coffee in the paper thin Haviland cups and conversations that went right over my head. I was spread out on the old oriental rug in the center of the room playing with a puzzle or two from my special drawer. Didn’t all grandmother’s keep special things for their granddaughter to play with? I never remember hearing the word Roosevelt, but I remember the family certainty that Dewey would win on that far off Thanksgiving afternoon.

Now over fifty years later, we know Dewey didn’t win and few remember Mrs. Roosevelt’s daily columns. Mrs. Roosevelt’s thinking continues to influence me, and this coming Thursday G and I will be joining another liberal thinker for a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.

Oh, it won’t be quite like grandmother’s dinner. Carrie has a kitchen five times the size of Grandma Maudie’s little space, and Carrie still likes to cook. There will be ham and turkey, potatoes and sweetpotatoes, corn, beans, peas, greens, turnips, and a sense of humor. Here there will be converstations on all topics from AIDS to the Red Cross, from the latest book read to the NBNA Convention in New Orleans. G will get his flu shot in the midst of music and humor.

Oh, politeness will reign here too as it did in Eleanor Roosevelt’s day, but in many ways it is thanks to Mrs. Roosevelt and her forward thinking that G and I will share this holiday with Carrie’s family. You bet I am thankful.

A PS for the day: Each day the nerve damage in G’s back grows less. His hand and arm tingle less, and he can do a little more. The Workman’s Comp doc is still unhappy, and she has ordered G to have an MRI before anything else is done. I must admit that I am not thinking well of the PT who crushed the nerve in G’s back. You can now think of me manhandling the holiday tree from the ground floor garage to the upstairs living room before G gets home. I don’t want him to lift a thing until he’s free of doctor’s, appointments and MRI’s. Now, if I can get it up the front stairs….this will be interesting.

My Day

The Great Truman Surprise

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt