[Mb-civic] Thanks, but No Card - Richard Cohen - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Thanks, but No Card

By Richard Cohen
Thursday, November 24, 2005; Page A35

My friend -- my very nice friend -- has sent me a Thanksgiving card. It 
is an e-mail card, but a Thanksgiving card nonetheless. I think it is 
the second Thanksgiving card of my life. With any luck it will be the last.

I hope my friend does not take offense. But the one thing I cherish 
about Thanksgiving is that it has remained commerce-free. Almost all the 
other holidays, especially Christmas, have been corrupted by 
commercialism. Even Thanksgiving is threatened by its proximity to 
Christmas -- with the sinisterly named "Black Friday," when shoppers 
arrive before dawn to save a buck or two. But as they stampede through 
the doors, as they elbow one another out of the way, as their greed 
distorts their faces, I have to remind myself that this is about the 
Christmas that is coming and not the Thanksgiving that has passed. I 
also have to remind myself that no matter what some conservative 
commentators say, something other than liberals has despoiled Christmas.

Other holidays have suffered accordingly. Halloween was once a golden 
opportunity to run amok -- to wish for no treat so that the trick could 
be performed. Now it has been corrupted into a sweet national costume 
party, an event without menace or meaning, an excuse to dress as 
something you're not, which is what most of us do most of the time 
anyway -- i.e., middle-aged people in tight jeans, kids in tight jeans, 
Al Roker in jeans of any kind, and all sorts of people with studs in 
their noses and rings in their lips. What do they wear on Halloween?

Armistice Day, which once marked a real event -- the end of World War I 
-- has been amorphisized (Okay, I made up the word) into this thing we 
call Veterans Day. It celebrates veterans, which means it celebrates 
something so amorphous it's hard to say what or who is being celebrated. 
Heroes? Not really. Combat experience? Not that, either. A lifetime of 
military service? No, too restrictive. So it's just anyone who was ever 
in the military. Yes, that's it. Is it any wonder no one much pays any 
attention -- or, for that matter, notices that the day lacks an apostrophe?

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln's birthdays have become one event. 
Feb. 22 and Feb. 12 have been squished into a single day, the third 
Monday in February. The tragedy and greatness of Lincoln, the aloofness 
and majesty of Washington, have been subsumed into some grand excuse to 
dress up an actor in a wig so that cars can be sold. The reality of 
these men has been erased, smudged into something meaningless: another 
wretched shopping day. Every time I see a commercial with someone 
dressed as George Washington hawking a Toyota, I want to bomb Tokyo all 
over again. Cut it out!

Only a few holidays remain more or less sacrosanct. July 4, although 
widely disrespected by auto dealers and other such criminals, retains a 
vestigial meaning as Independence Day. In some places the Declaration of 
Independence is still read, a document so radical that if it were 
introduced into the current Congress, Republicans would bottle it up in 
committee. Memorial Day, too, manages a fading dignity, although it is 
mostly marked as the beginning of summer. As for Labor Day, it merely 
ends the summer, its original meaning almost totally lost.

But Thanksgiving -- it is still home and family and turkey and a moment 
wondering about the wonder of it all. It is above all about my mother, 
Pearl, a remarkable 93, and the family she has gathered around her. It 
is a moment to honor the memory of my father, who lives long after his 
death in the occasional dream and the odd moment when I remember to call 
him -- and then remember there is no one to call. It is about the words 
my sister always says when we sit down to eat. She always gives thanks.

So I say to my friend, Thank you for thinking of me on Thanksgiving, 
but, please, no more cards. This is a very rare day. It celebrates a 
concept -- not a person, not a group, not an event. It is wholly and 
entirely about gratitude -- about the dumb luck that befell those of us 
who are Americans and were raised, whether in comfort or not, in a land 
of feisty, free people. Keep the day free of commercialism. When you 
really care enough to send the very best, please, for Thanksgiving, send 
nothing at all.

Thanks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/23/AR2005112301644.html?nav=hcmodule
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