[Sca-cooks] OT/OOP "Begging for Thanksgiving"
Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius
adamantius1 at verizon.net
Sat Oct 31 13:49:18 PDT 2009
Hullo, the list...
This subject came up while I've been running around the house on
various week-before-event cooking chores, watching short and some not-
so-short trick-or-treater types in their finery out in the street
below. (Yes, we are prepared for trick-or-treaters, although they tend
to be rare in apartment buildings these days - instead of mean old
people yelling at kids to get offa their lawns, we have mean people
who won't buzz strangers into the building... no comment on reasons or
propriety of that practice.) Among other things, I note that the large
[I think] Ecuadorian family across the street got into their van and
drove away, almost entirely dressed as some sort of clowns; I get a
sense there's some sort of iconic imagery involved that I simply don't
get. Also that next door to them, the Korean family with the several
16-25-year-old daughters sent them out of the house, all dressed in
variations on Catwoman costumes, but which were probably not so much
Halloween costumes as their standard Saturday evening dance club attire.
I couldn't find it in my heart to complain too much.
However...
I'm wondering if I'm the only one here who remembers, either
personally or via anecdotes from older friends and relatives, the
concept of dressing as "tramps" and going "begging for Thanksgiving".
Both my parents spoke of this; Halloween was for pranks (things like
stockings full of chalk or baby powder or flour, with which to
harmlessly whack the unwary traveller), but Thanksgiving was for
dressing up and going door to door.
I wonder if perhaps the practice died out in the Great Depression,
when many American households in some parts of the country experienced
far too much of this sort of thing from people who were doing it in
earnest to survive...
Adamantius, skimming fish fumet
"Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls,
when we all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's
bellies."
-- Rabbi Israel Salanter
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