4 or 2?

Thursday, the thundering horde — 14 of us — gathered for the feast of Thanksgiving, turkey, ham, cheesecake, sweet potatoes, casseroles, dressing, pies, — a cornucopia of goodies.

Riotous laughter filled the room, shaking the walls, as we all got reacquainted and caught up on news of family and friends.

Ginny lead a prayer of thanksgiving and one for U.S. soldiers and their families; then we went around the circle and each one told about certain things they are thankful for.

After the feast, I gave a devotional talk which started our as an English grammar lesson. A sentence has a subject, then it has a verb which shows what that subject is or does, then it has an object, direct or indirect or both.

I used a sentence from the Bible to illustrate these features of grammar:

“Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift”.

I showed that while we acknowledge benefits, show appreciation and are grateful for things, the verb “Thanks” indicates that we are addressing a Person. We don’t thank inanimate objects — only Persons.

We are thankful for things; but we are thankful to God.

I tried to show that the for is meaningless without the to.

Then I illustrated the unspeakable (too precious to be expressed by mere words) gift by using a Post It note and a wooden pencil.

The family had not seen this object lesson before and later several people commented on how helpful it was to them.

To tempter my solemn meditation, we all played that favorite family game of trying to make Big Sister spew soda out her nose by making her laugh every time she tried to take a drink.

We are really good at this game.

After all that, a bunch of us guys got together and assembled a heavy cement fountain — without crushing anybody’s toes.

We followed a family tradition of writing our letters to Santa saying what gifts we wish we’d get for Christmas — this is a fantasy wish-list with no bearing on reality, but it’s lots of fun.

Then we trooped to Steve’s to view his museum-quality models of planes, ships and tanks. We also saw his collection of medals for bravery — he’s a Viet Nam war hero.

When I get my camera fixed, I’ll post some photos of his models. They are magnificent.

Several new guests I’d never met before attended the feast but in the turmoil I hardly got to speak to them. If they weren’t too intimidated by Cowart revelry and ribality to ever show up again, I’ll get to know them in the future.

Although Steve is younger than I am, yet we are closer in age than anyone else at the feast, so we holed up in a corner to discuss his war and the present one. Eve talked with him about the possibility of his giving a history lecture at her library after the first of the year.

Finally, fed and familied out, Ginny and I returned home to snuggle under a blanket on the sofa and watch the Cowboys football game.

Oh yes, in a recent e-mail, someone asked me if, as a fanatic Christian, I had any contact with a compound, like the one David Koresh and his followers lived in out west?

I wish to assure all readers that the only compound I have any association with at all is Preparation H.

One last thing, in the midst of your Christmas shopping, please consider taking a look at my on-line book catalogue to see if any thing there might be suitable as a gift for someone you love. Thanks.... Er, make that: I thank You.