The Countryman: For this we give thanks

At our church and others, the words in that headline are part of every worship service. We say them as we share our joys of the previous week.

Oh, no, Martha, he’s gonna go all religious on us! No, no, not to worry. This is about thankfulness, not prayerfulness.

In the years I was in the Turkey business, WGAN in Portland interviewed me the day before each Thanksgiving. I was always on the road with last-day deliveries. Mike Violette and Ken Altschuler talked with me for 10 minutes or so about how the season had gone, what we had done or should have done differently and the like. Ken even had specific questions about Turkeys, often centering on their undeserved reputation as numb.

We talked one year as I was sliding down Route 302 through Windham in a snowstorm after having delivered at 6 a.m. to a store in Bridgton. Another year. I pulled over on I-295 for the interview. There, one of my crew found a very freshly killed eight-point buck about 20 yards from the roadway. Since he was handling people’s food that day, he did not roll the carcass to learn how it died. He was a hunter, though, and wicked curious.

Last year, we talked while I was between Bath and Topsham, having left Turkeys and paperwork at Bath for my son to hand out birds. Knowing it was my last year made the interview melancholy. What wasn’t said was that Mike was about to wrap up his time on the radio. It was his final time, too, talking about Turkeys.

As we signed off, I always urged listeners to keep the spirit of Thanksgiving. I don’t have that platform in retirement, but I still feel the thankfulness.

Not everyone is physically and mentally able to participate in the economy for life. But, beginning at age 7 by selling newspapers on the street, I always had a job. Except for a month or so in graduate school, but then a buddy got me in at a drive-in burger joint in Kansas City where I could violate the terms of my scholarship and earn a few bucks running the night shift. I was able to work for 68 years. For this I give thanks.

The books we want to read always outnumber the books we read. I’ll never get to them all, even if I live another 20 years. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Eudora Welty, Alice Munro, (my fellow Missourian) Mark Twain, Robertson Davies. And more. And more. In the past month, I’ve read as many books (three: Hillbilly Elegy, White Trash and Tribe) as in most years and have still kept up my New Yorker, Atlantic monthly and New York Times habits. For this I give thanks.

Unexpected side effects enrich our actions. As a consequence of being in business, I have made friends with a former French and photography professor at Bowdoin; a couple from Cleveland, retired as physicians, whom we see at concerts and who invite us to shows of her photography; a woman who competes in strongman events when she’s not farming; customers who share my passion for women’s basketball. No one enters business to find friends. But we found them there. For this I give thanks.

As a member of the SAD 9 school board, I once asked the superintendent during a disciplinary hearing how many chances we should give errant kids. Lawson Rutherford, the superintendent, replied, “As many as they need.” Lawson is not a bleeding-heart lefty but a pragmatist. His position impressed me, and I carried some of it into business.

Giving people second chances and maybe helping them turn around became part of our business model. In truth, the vast majority made no U-turn just because they found work on our farm. Some stole tools, clothes, even money. Most kept doing drugs, even at work. The multi-skilled stole tools to sell for money to buy drugs while stealing other workers’ clothes to keep warm. Some goofed off until I came around the corner.

But a few came in, learned they could succeed and went on to success that didn’t involve Turkey guts. Or feathers. Or anything else Turkey. For this I give thanks.

Friends and family often make up the crew of young businesses. After a couple of negatives experiences, I decided not to hire friends. But I wasn’t afraid to become friends with folks I hired. One in particular is Marvin Storer of Jay. With Marv we shared the joy of successful Fryeburg Fairs, successful and disastrous years of Turkeying, and a gratifying turnaround of life’s fortunes. For this I give thanks.

We often see government and business as opponents. They usually are. But, without the assurance that Social Security would provide an albeit meager living in retirement, we would not have risked entering business. We liquidated our retirement savings and borrowed more to start the farm. We never made enough on the farm to reestablish the IRAs, but we made a living. For this I give thanks.

Sometimes we’re better off here than we know. When Marilyn was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, I asked a friend and customer who was a retired breast oncologist where we should go. To paraphrase Marshall Dodge, she said, “Don’t you move a gawddam inch.” Maine Medical Center is a top-25 oncology program, she said, and we would gain nothing but odometer miles by going to Johns Hopkins (Baltimore), Sloan-Kettering (New York) or Dana-Farber (Boston). The late orthopedist Bill Lambert, who died of leukemia just after Marilyn’s diagnosis, told us the same.

Our cars pretty well know the route to the Scarborough cancer center. It is nine years, four months, since the diagnosis. We are managing the cancer. For this I give thanks.

We must never overlook the opportunities this country offers. Yes, my springboard growing up in a sharply segregated city (schools, churches, theaters, etc.) was white male privilege. But when the father of five commits suicide, he screws up the six left behind. That’s a tough start, but thanks to the gene pool and to the opportunities that this country presents, five of us made it.

My mother returned to school and became a college teacher and counselor. She left eight grandchildren when she died in 1980. One sister died in a car crash two years after our father shot himself. Another sister was a professional cellist, then an ad copywriter. A third was a high-school teacher, then an antiques dealer. The fourth rose to vice-president of Manpower Inc., the temporary help company. You already know more than you want about how I found opportunity. For this I give thanks.

There is the usual thanks to give. For health. For a sheltering nation. For faith. For a big firewood pile, well stacked. For farmers who feed us. For scenery that can take away your breath. For winter and the black flies that hold down Maine’s population.

And there is even more. It is more personal, and I will save those thank yous for
later today for Marilyn and Robbie and Chris and Rachel.

For all of this I give thanks.

Bob Neal hopes he can thank everyone he owes. They have made life worth living.