[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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