“We want gravy!” we’d all shout, loud as we could. We’d bang our plates and shout again, “We! Want! Gravy!”

Such whooping and hollering was all part of our family‘s holiday tradition back in the 1930s and ‘40s.

Every Thanksgiving during this time of scarcity, even hunger, my parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins would mock reality with a meal so full and delicious —some might call it intemperate — it brightened our spirits as it burdened our stomachs.

Late Thanksgiving morn, armed with covered dishes, we’d all gather at my Aunt Marion’s and Uncle Herb’s home in the section of Chicago called Edison Park. Men in the living room with stale jokes, poker, and cigars; women in the kitchen where for five hours they would gossip, laugh, and busy themselves doing the work of the gods of abundance. Anticipation ran high.

Once at the table, now burdened with a huge turkey and a cornucopia of side dishes, we would begin chanting, “We want gravy! We want gravy!”

With 20 to 25 hungry voices joined in joyous noise, the dog would scurry upstairs and hide. (One Thanksgiving, Marion’s caged canary croaked at the first shout of “We want…!” apparently frightened to death.)

Then, to whistles and applause, Marion brought in the huge gravy boat signaling the celebration of food and family and our love of both.

They’re all dead now, but me.

Thanksgiving: So Uniquely American

I haven’t heard “We want gravy” for 60 years. Perhaps more than any other childhood memory, I miss that warm sense of community and love and sharing Thanksgiving Day always brought.

Yet, as I write this, 39-million Americans are heading home for Thanksgiving and to whatever quirky family traditions will keep going for another year. That so many of us still make such an effort to celebrate family and community gives me hope that the America I cherish is still alive and kicking.

It is one of many reasons I have to be thankful this Thanksgiving.

Like so many of us geezers, Carolyn and I will be “eating out” this Thanksgiving, alone together among strangers. But that certainly doesn’t mean that there isn’t plenty of gravy in our lives.

We have our faith, first and foremost, without which life would be meaningless. And we have great love in our lives. Through Suddenly Senior, we have friends, old and new, in 176 countries around the world, all joining us in spirit at our table for two.

It wasn’t until seven months ago with the diagnosis of Carolyn’s incurable cancer — multiple myeloma — that we discovered what a loving extended family we truly have. Over 3,000 of you wrote, many sharing your brave, often miraculous experiences with disease.

Words can’t express how thankful we are for you all.

We live in a nation of infinite possibility and enormous beauty. It is a place from which — for the first time in history — the dream of world peace and prosperity can be initiated and realized. Requiring only compassionate leadership, the will and faith of us all, and the simple practice of the Golden Rule, we can and, I pray, will turn the world from hate to love, from extreme inequality to plenty for all.

It can be done. We have every chance to prove that, first right here at home.

How can we not be grateful for the good fortune to be born here to enjoy freedoms preserved and unequaled diversity and tolerance?

We enjoy prosperity. I cannot tell you how thankful I am each month for our $780 Social Security check. Thankful, also, for traditional Medicare, without which I would be dead.

Most especially, Carolyn and I are grateful for you, dear reader. Today, you are our community, our family. You help provide us with a full and rich life.

Grateful for So Much From So Many

At the risk of offending so many who throughout the year help us to make Suddenly Senior as useful and as entertaining as possible, please allow me to thank a few of you individually for your unstinting and enduring contributions:

• Doug Noble, who works above and beyond to get Suddenly Senior up and out to you; Deborah Rhodes and Terry Hamilton Wollin for their superb editing (When you see a mistake, you can count on the fact that I overruled their better judgment); Rosemary Shay, who every day relentlessly tracks down articles of vital interest to seniors for our 10,664 Senior News readers; MaryJo Thomas, whose excellent book reviews we are so fortunate to have exclusively at Suddenly Senior; Tom Braun, whose “Confessions of a Drug Pusher” provides Suddenly Senior readers with an articulate registered pharmacist’s view of today’s healthcare and the failings thereof; and Joan Price, whose advice on senior sex is always well grounded and helpful.
  
  
• Thanks too, to the scores of you who send us jokes daily from which Carolyn culls “The Best Jokes of the Week”; to the hundreds of e-mail and letter writers who daily let me know what I’m doing right — and wrong; to all the editors and publishers who run the Suddenly Senior column, often in spite of the sling and arrows of offended readers, and special thanks to our advertisers without whom none of this would be possible.

Suddenly Senior has introduced us to some of the most remarkable folks in and around the world. Thank you all for joining us in this amazing journey we call aging.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! It is a uniquely American celebration.

Now, help yourself to the gravy! There’s plenty to go around.