Published: November 25, 2009 02:23 pm      

Openin’ up a can of wild turkey this Thanksgiving

Last week, a wild turkey meandered onto my friend’s suburban neighborhood driveway.

Now, you don’t have to know much about hunting to know wild turkeys don’t just meander into places where humans — or anything else, for that matter — move around. They are one of the most elusive and difficult birds to hunt for that reason.

So the fact that the turkey made it to my friend’s driveway was weird.

What’s weirder is that my friend just happens to be the only vegetarian on her cul-de-sac.

Call it coincidence, call it a leftover from the old WKRP turkey drop, or call it one smart bird. The poor guy might be the only creature in America aware of a little holiday called Thanksgiving happening this week.

Squashed between back-to-school supplies, Halloween décor, tinsel and evergreen boughs all vying for aisle space, Thanksgiving hardly stands a chance anymore.

Which is lamentable, considering Thanksgiving holds the essence of all the other holidays combined.

Because Thanksgiving goes beyond thanks.

Thanksgiving is about freedom.

Freedom, for instance, to celebrate Thanksgiving any way we want. In my family, the only thing conventional about Thanksgiving is the oven. We’re a can openin’, turkey fryin’, paper napkin usin’, boxed wine drinkin’, potato mashin’ bunch of suburban hillbillies. Green bean casserole’s best from the can, and I love that sweet potato casserole thingy with the little marshmallows baked on top. Jellied cranberry sauce (also from the can) is a treat when you use cookie cutters to cut out leaf and turkey shapes — and the kids are more likely to eat it that way, too. For dessert, we make buckeyes: peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate, which resemble those things that fall off trees in Ohio. And our Thanksgiving décor: a lone paper turkey on our sliding glass door.

The pilgrims and Indians celebrated their own, unique-traditions, too — hard earned traditions they paid for with their lives as they journeyed to the promised land called America. The journey meant freedom: freedom to read, write, speak, pray and worship.

Whether overseas, in our schools and town councils, or in our driveways, the battle for good and freedom seems ever more intense. Evil is increasingly surreptitious, attacking churches, justice leaders and simple folks whose only desire is to uphold the common good. Maybe that’s why this year, Veteran’s Day was especially poignant for me. An octogenarian Normandy survivor spoke at the middle school. A decorated Apache helicopter marine spoke at the grade school. A Navy veteran in attendance was so shaky, a soldier in fatigues standing next to him had to hold him up. And as that veteran stood quivering, he pressed his hand to his brow and saluted through the national anthem.

The older I get, the less tolerant I am about injustice and the more grateful I am for people who fight for things that are right, like truth, honesty, integrity and those who can’t stand up for themselves — whether veterans at our sides or targets of injustice around the world.

As we open cans in our kitchen on Thanksgiving Day, I’ll think about soldiers opening up Meals Ready to Eat, fighting for the same freedoms humans have crossed rivers and oceans and mountains and continents to maintain. I'll give thanks for the marine named Alex in Afghanistan who received news just last week — on his 21st birthday — he gets to finally come home. And I'll think of the 19-year-old marine from Cincinnati, Billy Spencer, who gave his life in Iraq when he ran to save the life of his commanding officer.

When you bow your head and press your folded hands to your brow on Thursday, remember that whether for our country, for our schools, or for our pastors, the time is right to stand up and fight. Even if we have to hold each other up to do so.

As Martin Luther King Jr., said, “The time is always right to do what is right.”

It is right to give thanks.

It is right to stand up for truth.

It is right to fight for freedom.

Otherwise, we might find ourselves like that turkey — scrambling to find the last safe haven in a cul de sac of carnivores.

Amy Sorrells is a Zionsville resident and writer working on her first book. E-mail Amy at aksorrells@gmail.com.