PROCLAMATION DOESN'T MAKE IT THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving as a holiday in the United States must be proclaimed by the president each year. "What if?" is a favorite tool of the writing profession to form a plot or provide a point. So I ask myself, what if a president failed to do this? Mired in the myriad problems of the nation, he just simply didn't get around to it?

Of course I'm aware that some Peggy Noonan probably writes the proclamation, but for the sake of "What if?" let's suppose it was never submitted to be read or heard?

The media which watches over such details would let us know if the president had done such an irresponsible, omissive thing. Otherwise, I dare say, most people would never know. Who awaits, eagerly, the proclamation? Who takes time to read it? It is seldom on a front page, seldom in a special boxed article bordered in eye-catching pumpkin orange?

Because it is there on our minds and on the calendar, I think workers, state, federal and local, would take the day off, even though they didn't know whether the president had proclaimed a holiday~~~~~ or not. We'd go on roasting our turkeys, baking our pumpkin pies, gathering our families together, giving thanks to God and the news coverage of the possible oversight would be only a blip on the screen where football players passed, panted and punted. Such is the ingrained will of the people to celebrate a day of thanks.

Why hasn't someone written a book about a president who failed to proclaim Thanksgiving, either through negligence, snafu, or deliberation? If, as the plot could go, the failure was done deliberately, there could be an impeachment before Christmas for arbitrary misconduct in office, with all the little side issues of this, that and the other factions. And what a juicy bit it would be for the columnists. George Will would come up with some brainy comments that would, perhaps, send us to the dictionary before we could get the full import of his meaning. Although one couldn't actually see them, one could, perhaps, feel the little, jagged, blue~ blazes after Pat Buchanan's potent ~protests. Royko, speaking through Slats Grobni~k, would drip and droozle with outrageous sarcasm, comical comments or Paris Green venom.

What would the people do? Like the pink bunny with the drum, we'd just go marching on by, paying scant attention of what was going on in the background, roasting our turkeys, baking our pumpkin pies, gathering our families together, giving thanks to God.

So, not waiting for the proclamation, I linger over the~ turkey bin, reading the labels that notifies ~which company got them there, number of lbs., final price, instructions as how to roast. After hefting several, no matter what the label says, I choose one that will feed those coming to my house on Thanksgiving.

That big item out of the way, I search for the canned pumpkin on the canned vegetable aisle. Not a can to be found. Can it be a fruit? I looked on the canned fruit aisle. Not there. I asked a roaming clerk about it who assured me it was up on the baking materials aisle, which set me to thinking, is pumpkin a canned vegetable, a canned fruit, or a canned pie?

You never see hickory nuts in little cellophane bags at the nuts shelves, so I'll have a bit of non-store-bought delicacy this year, having stumbled upon an abundance of shagbark hickory nuts up in old home country recently. They'll be in my ground raw cranberry salad, along with red ~Jel~lo, a ground orange, peel and all, and chopped appl~es. And I'll sprinkle some atop the pumpkin pie, probably having to explain to the younger generation what kind of nuts they are.

As I pick out the kernels, a real chore, I'll think of past proclamations of Thanksgiving. I've made a collection of such proclamations. You would think I wouldn't indulge, thus, in a little light-hearted, what-do-we-care-if-Thanksgiving-is-proclaimed-or-not.

Furthermore, I've given a number of programs on the proclamations time, place and circumstances and it warms me to remember that George Washington said, "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of~ Almighty God~...to be grateful for His benefits...to render unto ~Him our sincere and humble thanks...therefore I assign Thursday the 26 of November next...to render unto H~im our sincere and humble thanks."

Lincoln said, "I do therefore invite my fellow citizens to set apart the last Thursday in November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father~."

Franklin Roosevelt: "I designate next Thursday as a day of national Thanksgiving...give humble and hearty thanks for the bounty and the goodness of Divine Providence."~~

~President Carter said, "I ask all Americans to gather on that day (Thanksgiving) with their families and neighbors in their homes and in their houses of worship to give thanks for the blessings Almighty God has bestowed upon us."

And so the pink bunny beats on and on. This time of the year I shall call him the Thanksgiving Energizer.

REJOICE!