The Later Journeys - 5. Thanksgiving

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5. Thanksgiving


“Would you like to take a break?” I asked Dr. Franklin after allowing a short pause for him to digest this last bit of information.

“Take a break?” he repeated.

“Get up from the table and do something else? Rest?”

He took a deep breath. “Perhaps that would be wise,” he said. “But I am yet eager to know more.”

“You will,” the three of us said in comical unison. Our embarrassed smiles drew one from Franklin.

Ben retired to his room. Warren and I checked in with Trevor, who looked very tired.

“Are you okay?”

He shook his head. “I just ... My brain’s tired! I’m sitting across from Benjamin Franklin, talking about so many changes -- how is he going to handle all of this? Sometimes it’s hard for me to handle. Things seem to change by the day sometimes.”

“He’ll deal with it, or he won’t,” said Warren in the quietest of tones. He sounded decisive, but his face told a different story. “I have faith in him. He’s been through shit that would crush a lot of people in this day and age. He was abused by his older brother to the point that he ran away from home. Hopped on a boat at the age of 17 and ended up in Philly. He didn’t know a soul. Had one kid, who died of smallpox. Declaration of Independence. French Revolution. Constitution. He reminds me of Jimmy Carter. You couldn’t keep that old guy down. You show me one American today who could go through all of that without ending up in some institution or other.

“He lives for knowledge. We’ve all pored through his memoirs, all the biographies out there. Can you recall him ever, even once, expressing the idea that it was all too much, he couldn’t take it anymore?” We shook our heads in automatic denial.

“Still, though, I mean...” I struggled to express my thought. “I was born in 1976 and I know the world isn’t at all the same as it was just 54 years ago. And it accelerates...” The guys understood my point perfectly well; it wasn’t the first time we’d mulled this problem.

“I hate to say this,” said Warren, “because it sounds callous, but he’s 79 now. In his original timeline he’s got--” at this point, Warren simply held his hand up, palm toward us with fingers spread -- "to go.” Five years, in other words. “We’re not about to make him live through the 245 years between then and now. We’ll show him some of it. Possibly, with present-day medicine, we can extend that a little, and make him more comfortable. No more gout, no more pleurisy...” He paused to sum up. “Change isn’t always bad, that’s all I’m saying. Don’t worry too much about him.”

There wasn’t much more to say. It was nearly time for the midday meal, so we all pitched in, mainly to have a physical task that would ease the mental stress.

For no particular reason, we’d settled on turkey for the day’s meal, and a moderately large bird, caught and dressed wild, courtesy of Gerry’s friend, had been roasting since just after breakfast. Much of the other food had been prepared a day or two earlier and stashed in the ice house. Potatoes and plain bread stuffing (the genuine article, from scratch, no Stove Top out of a box -- at least not yet); a variety of cooked vegetables and a few different types of pie.

Ben still wore that wary expression when he emerged from his room to rejoin us, but the spread of food visibly relaxed him, as did the generous servings of wine. We engaged him in conversation by asking him about the most memorable and satisfying meal he could recall. He hearkened back to his very recent tenure as the first U.S. Ambassador to France, and soon brought us to a place he mightily enjoyed -- poking fun at John Adams.

“I trust you’ll never tell him I said this,” he said, oblivious to the sidelong glances we exchanged, “but I pity him his pain and refusal to even consider a less stricturous life than the one he has set himself to. A meal such as this --” He extended his arm to take in the bounteous spread “--would earn naught but scorn and disapproval over its excess.” He looked at me. “And I trust you will understand my meaning when I say that dinners at Passy included sometimes five times this many guests...servants by the score...so much food and so much drink! Incredible!” He sat back and sighed. “Perhaps...perhaps Adams was correct. After all that time abroad, among such indulgent friends, I have descended to the level of a hedonist.”

“You only live once,” Warren said.

Franklin looked at him, his head tilted. “Yes, this is true. But what shall one make of that one life?” He sighed again. “I have learned, I think, that life does give us opportunities to make corrections, even when we overindulge. Tomorrow, perhaps, we will dine in a more Spartan fashion.”

We took that opportunity to introduce the Thanksgiving holiday, even though our version was a week or two away. Franklin thoroughly enjoyed a topic he could relate to, since Plymouth Rock was very recent history for him.

“Shall we go around the table and talk about things we’re thankful for?” I ventured, using such traditions from my own life as a reference.

“I am humbly grateful that God did not strike us to cinders for neglecting to say grace before this meal and the one that preceded it,” said Ben. The three of us fell awkwardly silent for a moment.

“You’re right,” said Trevor. “Would you care to be the unofficial chaplain of our group, Ben? We’re all reprobates, I fear.” Warren and I laughed in response and Ben gave a small smile.

“I can do that,” he said and promptly bowed his head. We all did the same.

“Almighty God, we humbly thank you for your care and sustenance and pray that all we endeavor is pleasing in Your sight. Amen.”

“Amen,” we all murmured, and that was that. Franklin appeared to gird himself; he looked up at Trevor.

“Shall we continue where we paused earlier?” he asked. Trevor was more than happy to agree, and they retired once again to the study, while Warren helped me put the kitchen into order. As for me, I was giving silent thanks for the icehouse, where we were able to store the leftovers. Wasn’t sure if “Waste not, want not” was a Ben Franklin original, but throwing out any of that food (including turkey bones, which would contribute to a hearty stock) would have felt criminal. I didn’t consider myself much of a cook, but had grown up in a family that composted, reused and recycled on a daily basis. This, to me, represented an excellent opportunity to truly live those values.

While we worked, we kept our ears tuned to the discussion in the next room. Trevor tried very hard to ask Ben questions, rather than spoon-feed him information. In Ben’s time, we knew, the Constitutional Convention was less than two years away, but we weren’t sure what Ben’s perception was. We wanted very much to avoid “predictions” of events that were in the future from his point of view. So Trevor asked Ben how he viewed the state of our Union.

“We’ve a long way to go. Challenges appear each day,” we heard him say. There was some extended conversation about the need to preserve the Union. Franklin’s descriptions surprised us. Only 3 million people in his United States, yet many of the divisions he touched on were very familiar. In 245 years, they persisted like some diseases.

Sometime later, we heard him say “You say we stretch from ocean to ocean. That is difficult to accept. Might you have a map?”

Warren and I walked into the room and met Trevor’s gaze. We had already agreed to give Ben any information he asked for, including a map, but we wanted to witness his first exposure to it.

Trevor got up from the table and retrieved a large wall map of the U.S. It was printed on paper, in a sepia-toned style that Ben would have been familiar with in the 18th century, but was up to date as to where the states were in relation to each other, with the largest cities represented.

Ben regarded this spectacle for some minutes. He wore his eyeglasses, we saw, but soon he took them off, blinked and rubbed his eyes. Trevor noted that and retrieved a large rectangular magnifying glass for him, then brought the lamp closer. It was a present-day glass, I saw, with a plastic frame and handle. I don’t think Ben even noticed.

He was silent and intense as he sat with that magnifying glass, methodically traveling with it, first along the Eastern Seaboard and the 13 original colonies, then slowly migrating south and west.

"Ah--Vermont!" we heard him say, in a barely audible whisper. “Louisiana...Alabama...West Virginia...”

I wondered if our presence was helpful to him or not and thought about quietly summoning the guys out of the room to give Ben some space. In the end, I kept quiet. It was while watching Ben’s slow progress that I reminded myself of the much slower pace of his time, and how inappropriate it would be to rush him in any way. What purpose would speed serve, anyhow? So we all made ourselves relax and breathe, while Ben focused fully on the map for the next twenty minutes or so.

Finally, he lifted his eyes from the map, gently put the magnifying glass down and stood. “You will excuse me,” he murmured and left the house, bound for the privy.

There really wasn’t much for us to say, and would not be until he rejoined us. But Warren gave a short laugh and said “What do you say we tell him about indoor plumbing soon?”

That broke the solemn mood, but underneath the levity, we were in unanimous agreement. Products of our time we were, and none of us enjoyed trekking back and forth to the outhouse in the frosty hours of the night, or using corn cobs for toilet paper. And indoor "chamber pots" were downright unspeakable.

So while Ben clearly wished to return to his map, Trevor forestalled him.

"Dr. Franklin, you had expressed a desire to know some newer inventions, and I have one that may interest you a great deal."

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