Thanksgiving Day is Thursday. Being a child of a farm family, I always looked forward to this special day. Even in hard times Mother would cook good meals and make cakes and cookies.
I recall one special day in winter when snow was falling Dad – Neal Justus – came walking out of the woods with a wild turkey gobbler! Mother cooked that big turkey on our wood burning stove and made pies and a cake.
While we had some hard times when I was a boy, we planted big gardens and fattened hogs for meat. We also raised chickens and it was common to cook a spare rooster if the preacher on Sunday ate lunch at our house.
Later, while serving in Korea, a special airlift was made to get turkeys to our location in time for Thanksgiving. The same efforts were made to get those turkeys to us in the Philippines and Vietnam.
Faith had a big part in our observance of Thanksgiving. Our grandparents and parents made known to us children that we owed God thanks for hope, life, blessings and freedom.
While I came from a poor farm family, I saw greater poverty and want in Korea during wartime. Today my mind goes back to the cold, grim winter and sweltering summer spent in Korea.
I still recall seeing Korean women picking food out of our garbage can by the mess hall. We would deliberately add unnecessary food on the trays to dump into the cans outside the door. Different groups of us on Christmas took food to poor farm families living in clay and thatch walled huts. The walls were plastered with cow dung to seal cracks against the bitter snow storms. The only heat came from a small cast-iron stove and a deep snow covered the ground on our visit.
Later, I had the opportunity to help poor rural families while stationed on Luzon Island and in Vietnam.
How sweet it was coming home to our wonderful country. How sad it is to see how some take America’s freedom and fortune for granted.
This Thanksgiving, let us be be grateful for the many blessings we have and let us show our gratitude by using those blessings to help others.
