"Thanksgiving Receipt"

Here's one of the grittiest Thanksgiving gratitude poems you're likely to encounter, born of survival, discipline, and perseverance...

Her first Thanksgiving back from college my daughter sprang

out of the Town Car and started up our front walk. We circled

her en route: hugs and kisses, some explanation of a not-so-faded

Division I ding, and an afterthought—“Here.” She handed me

the large, easy-to-read receipt—bright yellow testament to

distance traveled—$58 from the airport.

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I turned to start back up the walk reminded of a freshman year

over two decades earlier, when $50 represented a social security

payment—total monthly living allowance—the paltry receipt

of a father’s choice not to pay into the system.

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A surge of gratitude for blessings present melted into the mixed

memory of Thanksgivings past: the motley gathering circling

the tin folding table, turkey parts and Del Monte cans orbiting

the steaming bowl of instant stuffing; and the drawn and self-

contained high-school boy layered in hooded sweatshirts and

neck towel, mid-section carefully wrapped in plastic begged

from dry cleaners, curtly rejecting entreaties to eat—“I’m

sucking weight.”

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Out of the cramped apartment, on the empty streets of

Thanksgiving night, the ritual would begin: jog to the corner,

cross the deserted avenue, stretch and roll on the cold, hard

safety mats beneath the playground’s swings, then begin

pounding towards the bowels of Long Island City—industrial

Queens.

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At the 39th Street drop in Skillman Avenue, Midtown’s

glittering skyline would suddenly expand—the cue to narrow

focus to next week’s season-opening meet. I’d begin the internal

drone—“Who’s the champ? Who’s the champ? I am. I am.”

Past the giant factories and their empty truck bays, under els

and over train bridges, along the perimeters of refuse-strewn

lots, monotonously, interminably chanting, pounding, paying

the price, praying the price.

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Seeing my teenage daughter bound effortlessly, happily into our

home her first Thanksgiving back from college playing fields, it

occurred to me that I have no memory of returning from those

long-ago, inner-gritty Thanksgiving runs—no homecoming

memory in hand, but, thankfully, a bright receipt for a price paid.

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Copyright ? 2001 Steven H. Biondolillo

(from Macaroni and Cheese Manifesto, Third Edition)

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