Oliver! (Film Soundtrack) – "Food, Glorious Food" (1968)

Food, glorious food!

What is there more handsome?

You may think that politicians are too partisan today.  But at least both parties agree on when to celebrate Thanksgiving.  In 1939, there were two different Thanksgiving Days in 1939 – one for Republicans, and one for Democrats.

I wasn’t going to do a Thanksgiving-related post this year until I saw the latest installment of the “Drinks with Dead People” blog.

I’ve been familiar with “Drinks with Dead People” for a couple of years, but I just found out that its author is a young lawyer who I used to talk with when she worked in-house for a client of mine.

Betsy Golden Kellem

Betsy Golden Kellem, the brains behind “Drinks with Dead People,” has led an interesting life:

I spent years in big legal practice, representing suitably big clients . . . . But you can also ask me about being a stand-up comedian, university professor, cub reporter, museum worker, oncology researcher, musician and college marching band drum major.  I’ve shown and sold my artwork, taught myself to play the drums and once dressed as 1968 Comeback Elvis for Halloween.  I’ll talk your ear off about history, and I can juggle flaming torches. (Really.)  

(She had told me about being a marching band drum major — at Yale, no less – but the other stuff was news to me.)

Betsy offers this one-line description of herself:

I combine delightful absurdity with a category-crushing knowledge of all things weird and helpful.

(You know, that’s not a bad description of yours truly – you’d need to add something like “and a breathtaking degree of narcissism” at the end, of course.)

Betsy’s latest post is titled “The Thanksgiving Turkey,” and it’s worth a read.  

The best part of it is a 1909 poem for children titled “The Martyrdom of St. Turkey” that Betsy discovered in an old educational journal. 

Here’s an excerpt from that poem, which compares the fate of Thanksgiving turkeys to that of martyred Christian saints:

They fed him to behead him,

And to take away his breath.

As they stuffed him, living,

So they stuffed him, dead.

Click here to read the entire poem.

Betsy’s discussion of the history of Thanksgiving inspired me to do a little historical research of my own.  (That is to say, I entered “Thanksgiving” and “Wikipedia” into Google.)

Thanksgiving was first celebrated in 1621 – everyone knows that, right?  (The feast likely took place at the end of September, not in November.)  

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that the final Thursday of November would be a national Thanksgiving Day.  The impetus for Lincoln’s action was a series of editorials by Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, an influential magazine editor and writer.  (Her most famous work is “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”)

FDR carving a turkey

Subsequent presidents followed Lincoln’s lead until 1939.  That year, there were five Thursdays in November.  The president of Federated Department Stores (now Macy’s, Inc.) urged Franklin Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving up a week in order to extend the Christmas shopping season.  

FDR agreed – the country was mired in the Great Depression, and he wanted to help out retailers – but his decision was controversial.  Many Republicans thought the change was disrespectful to Lincoln’s memory.  

More importantly, many colleges and high schools closed out their football seasons by squaring off against their traditional rivals on Thanksgiving Day, and it wasn’t possible to change the dates of all those games at the last minute.  

About half the states followed Roosevelt’s lead in 1939 and celebrated Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November (which fell on November 23 that year), but the other half of the states stuck with the last Thursday (which fell on November 30).

In 1941, Congress passed a joint resolution declaring that Thanksgiving would henceforth be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.  But some states resisted.  Texas, for example, continued to observe Thanksgiving on the fifth Thursday of November when there was a fifth Thursday until 1956.

“Food, Glorious Food” is the first musical number in the British musical, Oliver!, which is based on the famous Charles Dickens novel, Oliver Twist.

Oliver! opened in London in 1960, was brought to Broadway in 1963, and was made into a movie in 1968.  The movie won six Academy Awards, including the “Best Picture” award.

A new film version of Oliver! is expected to be released in late 2016.

Here’s “Food, Glorious Food,” from the 1968 movie.  I hope you and yours eat better today than these poor boys did.

Click below to buy the entire movie soundtrack from Amazon:

Alan Price – "O Lucky Man!" (1973)

If you've got the secret

Just try not to blow it

Stay a lucky man!

A couple of weeks ago, the Washington Post Magazine featured a short story by Alice McDermott titled "Gloria," which was about a Thanksgiving dinner that was similar in many ways to the one at my house earlier today.  Click here to read that story.

Alice McDermott

The host of the fictional dinner in "Gloria" was a successful man named Richard.  The dinner was attended by his adult children and grandchildren:

They were a happy family.  His children, and their children were thriving.

Before everyone began to eat, Richard rose to give a Thanksgiving toast, a "sentimental (and, yes, self-congratulatory) enumeration of their many talents, triumphs [and] joys."

Richard ended his toast by saying, "We are truly blessed" – which was not what he had planned to say:

He had intended to say "lucky," even to rap his knuckles on the table as he spoke.  But he said "blessed" instead.

Richard is seated next to his son Ryan's fiancée, a poised and beautiful young woman named Gloria whom he has only recently met.  Once everyone has had his or her fill of turkey, the grandchildren are allowed to leave the table and play in the family room while the dishes are cleared and dessert is prepared.  

During this interval between dinner and dessert, Richard learns that when Gloria was only 13, her mother began to show signs of early-onset Alzheimer's.  Her father eventually quit his job so he could care for her himself in their home.

When Gloria was a junior in college, her father died from a heart attack while making breakfast for her mother.  Most people attributed his heart attack to the stress of caring for his wife.  

After her father's death, Gloria dropped out of college temporarily so she could care for her mother: "I couldn't give her to strangers, either," she explains.

Gloria talks about what good, kind people her parents were – and explains why she is an only child:

They wanted to have a pack of kids, but things didn't work out.  My mother lost four babies before she had me.

Next, she questioned Richard's use of "blessed" in his pre-dinner toast:

I don't understand people who think they have been blessed.  That God somehow favors them because they're good people, or they worked hard.  My parents were good people who worked hard.  They deserved to grow old together, to see their grandchildren. . . . But I guess we weren't blessed the way you guys are, by whoever it is who does the blessing.

Ryan agrees with his future wife, opining that his family – in particular, his father – may be "too self-satisfied about their own good fortune, too oblivious to the troubles of others."  He tells his father, "You did sound kind of smug."

Later, as Richard's youngest granddaughter sits quietly in his lap, he sees Gloria watching the two of them.  She's smiling, "but with a certain arrogance":

As if her sorrow had made her prescient.  As if she saw the end of his luck somewhere, if not in his own fortunate life then in his children's, his children's children's.  As if she understood, but he did not, that it would take no more than a breath, a loosened blood clot, a bad gene – the cold work of some invisible hand, striking unexpectedly from out of darkness – to put an end to it all, his happiness, his complacency, his many blessings.

Owen Freeman's illustration for "Gloria"

Thanksgiving may be my favorite holiday.  We host Thanksgiving dinner every year, and we always have a good-sized crowd.  Today, there were a total of 20 of us in attendance – three of my four kids (plus two of their spouses), assorted in-laws, and a half-dozen nieces and nephews.

I'm the Richard of the family, so it falls to me to make brief pre-dinner remarks every year.  Usually those remarks are sort of half-toast, half-prayer.

Like Richard, I've used the word "blessed" in my Thanksgiving remarks.  

I believed I'm blessed, but not because I've done something to deserve my blessings – to the contrary.  I suffer at times from arrogance, and complacency, and smugness.  But I'm not so arrogant and complacent and smug to think that I've earned the blessings I've been given.  

Humility may not be my strong suit, but I can't feel anything except humility when I think about the extraordinary gifts I've been given – above all else, my four children.  I fall so far short of deserving them that I would have to be the world's biggest fool to think otherwise.

In the story, Richard intended to say "lucky," but said "blessed" instead.  His choice of words matters because "it was a toast he had stood to offer, a Thanksgiving toast.  No one had asked him for a prayer."  

I agree that "blessed" implies that your good fortune has come from God, while "lucky" lacks any religious connotation.  

But other than that difference, I think the words are interchangeable.  I might describe myself as either "blessed" or "lucky" to express the same important truth – which is that I have been given much more than I deserve to have been given.  

I don't know why that is.  But I do know that I can't count on that good fortune to continue, because things can change in an instant.  

By the end of "Gloria," Richard is less complacent than he was at the beginning of the story.  After hearing the story of Gloria's life, he appreciates that all it takes is "a loosened blood clot, a bad gene . . . to put an end to it all."  

Gloria has already learned that lesson the hard way.  Richard will no doubt have a similar experience sooner or later.  

But for the time being, Richard and his family have been spared the kind of sadness that Gloria has experienced.  Perhaps as a result of his conversation with Gloria, his is more appreciative of his blessings – or his luck, if you prefer.  Perhaps I am more appreciative as well for having read the story.

"O Lucky Man!" plays during the opening credit sequence of the 1973 movie of the same name.  Alan Price, who is best-known for his extraordinary keyboard work on the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun," wrote and performed the score for the movie.  

Contrary to Price's lyrics, there's no "secret" that enables you to "stay a lucky man."  Luck comes and goes as it pleases, boys and girls.  

Here's "O Lucky Man!":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Foo Fighters -- "My Hero" (1998)

There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes

I like to think I'm a good neighbor, and someone who cares about his fellow man.  But a hero?

I would never call myself a hero.  But if you choose to call me one after you read today's 2 or 3 lines, I won't argue with you.  (How the hell could I stop you?  Why in the world would I try?)

The day after Thanksgiving dawned mostly clear but very, very cold at 2 or 3 lines headquarters in Rockville, MD:

For years now, I've been riding my bike to work on the day after Thanksgiving.  The distance from my home to my office is about the same as the distance that marathon runners cover -- which is 26 miles and 385 yards.  

I cover the distance in a little over two hours, which is roughly the same time that is takes an Olympic-class marathoner to run it.  In other words, I go at the same speed as an gold-medal-winning Olympian.  (Pretty impressive, n'est-ce pas?)

I admit that I have a slight advantage over Olympic marathoners, who aren't allowed to take a break for a nice breakfast at McDonald's.

"I lift my lamp beside the Golden Arches"

My arrival at McDonald's was delayed until it was too late to get breakfast because I had to perform what I would modestly describe as a small feat of heroism en route.  (I'd like to think that the operative word here isn't "small," but rather "heroism.")  Let me tell you the dramatic tale, and you can judge for yourself.

I was about six miles into my ride, listening to Tru Fax & the Insaniacs -- which is fabulous music (I especially love their chick singer) -- when I saw a male lying flat on his back on the trail, like a corpse laid out in a coffin.  My first thought was that he was dead.

The man was lying on an icy stretch of the trail.  I had seen several icy patches already:

I dismounted from my bike, and approached the body.  I spoke to the man -- "Sir, sir!  Can you hear me?  All you all right?" -- but he didn't respond.  However, I could see he was breathing.  

I called 911, but the call didn't go all that well.  The dispatcher insisted upon me giving him an address.  Bike trails that go through public parks don't have addresses, but the dispatcher seemed incapable of understanding that.

The man lying on the bike path started to stir while I was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, and eventually managed to push himself up into a sitting position.  This was obviously good news, but also somewhat disappointing, because I had planned to get a dramatic photo of the man stretched out corpse-like on the trail.  (I'm always thinking of my loyal readers.)

Instead I got only this much less dramatic photo of him sitting up:

I went over and spoke again to the man, who did respond.  I got him to his feet and helped him negotiate his way off the ice-covered part of the trail.  We exchanged a few words -- he lived in the neighborhood, and I'm guessing was out for his morning constitutional when he slipped on the ice and went *ss over teakettle and banged the back of his head on the paved trail, knocking himself unconscious -- for how long, I have no idea.  

He was a little confused and a little wobbly as we walked down the trail, but seemed basically fine.

Which is what I told the EMTs when they arrived a couple of minutes later: 

At this point, it was clear my work was done.  I left my charge in the hands of the experts, and went on my merry way, speeding down the trail in the hope of reaching my destination in time to have a Sausage McMuffin.

Alas, that effort was in vain.  But no worries, mon.  I got a double cheeseburger off the "Dollar Menu" instead.  (By the way, that double cheeseburger cost $1.49.  So maybe it should have been listed on the "Dollar Forty-Nine Menu.")

It was a small price to pay for saving a man's life -- don't you agree?  (I thought you would.)

If you've never saved a life, I highly recommend it.  No matter how many times I do it, it never gets old -- it's always a deeply satisfying experience.

It's always a classy touch to end a post like this one with a little poetry.  So permit me to quote John Donne, who famously said, "No man is an island/Entire of itself';

Any man's death diminishes me

Because I am involved in mankind

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

I hope you're not waiting for a punch line, because there isn't one.

Here's "My Hero," which was the third single from the Foo Fighters' 1998 album, The Colour and the Shape:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: