A reason to be thankful
By BILL DUNCAN My wife and I are celebrating the Thanksgiving day in Eugene with our oldest daughter and her family, including three great grandchildren. It is as it should be, a family affair in which each one at table contributes something toward the meal. In my case, I always bring the family favorite, Pimiento cheese, a recipe from my Southern heritage, and my own version of Chex Mix. One of the chief differences from the recipe on the Chex cereal box is that I add popcorn to the mix. My wife, Ada, will contribute two pies, a pumpkin and an apple. The family always manages to include as part of the celebration our wedding anniversary, which, as a movable feast, seldom falls on Thanksgiving Day, although it was Thanksgiving Day 58 years ago when we were married on Nov 23, 1950. To me, that is reason enough to be thankful. In the past 58 years, there have been many anniversary celebrations, but none can match our 17th anniversary celebration. My wife and I are both journalists. In that capacity we were assigned to take the last voyage of the Queen Mary, sailing on Oct. 31, 1967 from Southampton, England around Cape Horn to Long Beach, Calif. She as editor of the shipboard daily newspaper, “The Ocean Bulletin,” and I as a reporter covering the last voyage for the Long Beach Press-Telegram and the Ridder newspaper chain, as well as the Associated Press. The Queen Mary had too broad of a beam to squeeze through the Panama Canal, so the ship had to traverse Cape Horn. That dreaded graveyard of ships was calm as a lake when we sailed around the tip of the South American continent but then we were met by a fierce Pacific storm. The storm had subsided by Nov. 23rd, the date of our 17th wedding anniversary however and. somehow, our tablemates in that formal Queen Mary dining room had learned of our anniversary. Ken Behr, a famous aviator from Long Island, N.Y., who referred to me as Arthur Brisbane, arranged for a sumptuous dinner in our honor that included Chautebriand, vintage champagne and Cherries Jubilee for dessert. As was customary every night of the voyage, we were dressed in tuxedos and formals for dinner. After that elegant dinner we received an invitation from the printers in the print shop on D-deck where Ada produced the daily “Ocean Bulletin,” for another “anniversary” celebration. The printers had scrubbed the ink-stained “stone,” an old printer’s devise where the newspaper is made ready for the press, spread it with a lace tablecloth and stacked it with fried egg sandwiches, chips and dips and hard whiskey still in the bottle. The printers even had iced the beer. It was a celebration equal to anything in that fancy dining room four decks above. We eventually got back to our cabin only to find a bottle of champagne chilling in ice in the lavatory, compliments of Frank Black, the public relations man from the City of Long Beach, with a card of congratulations. The next morning the ship arrived at Valparaiso, Chile and it was Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24, 1967. We went ashore to explore yet another port of call in the 40 day voyage from England to Long Beach, Calif. After a long day we decided to stay ashore and have dinner in a Chinese restaurant. The nearest thing to turkey on the menu was Peking duck, but the Chinese didn’t include my favorite Thanksgiving dish – the stuffing. Happy day Thanksgiving to all my readers. (Bill Duncan can be reached at bduncan@nrtoday.com or by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 9470)
The View From Here