27
by
MAJOR FRANK DURACHER
T H I R T Y � S O M E T H I N G
Australian friends of ours
were able to experience what an American Thanks-
giving is like when we hosted them for a turkey din-
ner and an afternoon of football last November.
Australia is a lot like America. During our 18
months there we learned a lot from our Aussie family,
and hopefully they learned something from us "Yanks."
For example: we observe many of the same hol-
idays, albeit by a different name and in a different
season. They have Christmas (in the summer!),
Easter (in the Fall!), and Halloween (in the Spring!).
It has something to do with the sun and the equator.
Mother's Day is the same (second Sunday in
May), but Labor Day is in March and Father's Day
is in September. They don't know what a groundhog
is, so forget about February 2--and they do have
Valentine's Day, but it's not the big deal like it is
for us here in the good ol' U.S. of A.
One uniquely American holiday they seemed
fascinated with is ... Thanksgiving.
From our first day on the job, someone asked us
about Thanksgiving. "What is pumpkin pie?" "Who
were the Pilgrims?" "Is there really a Plymouth Rock?"
"Why were the Indians so nice to the Pilgrims?"
Thanksgiving
Coming Home
............
Major Frank Duracher is Divisional Secretary for the
Maryland�West Virginia Division and has served in
national and international editorial appointments.
And American football (they call it "Gridiron")--
what's up with that, and why has it become such a
huge part of our annual thanks given to God?
I was pleased to learn that they have turkey. Be-
ing from New Orleans, I mentioned something about
my family tradition of "Cajun Deep-Fried Turkey."
Everyone's mouth dropped. "What's that, mate?"
someone queried.
So I explained that a properly prepared turkey
is dropped (slowly!) into a huge vat of boiling peanut
oil for about 45 minutes. "If you have my Deep-Fried
Turkey," I bragged, "you'll never want roasted again!"
That did it.
"When can we come?"
Thus began a nearly year-long planning to have
all of our friends over on the Saturday after Thanks-
giving. We had to work on Thursday!
I invited everyone in our workplace and at our
corps, in the same spirit as Jesus' blanket invitation
(Luke 14:23) for everyone to come to His Father's
banquet table.
I had brought only one turkey deep�fryer from
America, but within three hours I had three turkeys
cooked to perfection and served piping hot. Our
guests brought Australian dishes for us to sample,
as well as a few attempts at American holiday staples
they had heard about. By the way, that was
not cran-
berry sauce!
Like any family reunion, we had our picture
taken. With the big screen TV going and our Christ-
mas Tree aglow, we made a memory.
I love all of you. I miss all of you. I thank God
for all of you.
Happy Thanksgiving.
"Down
Undah"
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