Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
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Tuesday, November 24, 1998
Robert Novak/ KANSAN
Editorials
Giving time to underprivileged good way to celebrate Thanksgiving
This Thanksgiving, while everyone is loosening their belts in preparation for hours of football, it is important to keep in mind that not everyone is this fortunate. While many of us are torn between whether we should eat that second piece of pie, there are those who go hungry in Lawrence. Rather than being racked with guilt, all of us can lend a helping hand in the community.
There are several charities in Lawrence that could use volunteers during the holiday season. Traditionally, this is a busy time for charities that try to give some sense of joy to those who may not be able to fully participate in the holiday festivities. Many shelters and soup kitchens are swamped this time of year, and there is no better way to help these agencies
Students should help charities give to the needy during the holiday season.
than to give of your time.
The Salvation Army is one organization in Lawrence that could use volunteers. Located at 946 New Hampshire St., it operates a coat distribution, a toy distribution and perhaps most visible, a bell-ringing fundraiser. Meals are served at the shelter every night from 8:30 to 10:30, and a special holiday meal is served Dec. 9. To find out more about the myriad of programs at the Salvation Army, you can call 843-4188, or stop by the office.
The Douglas County Community
Center could use volunteers today to help pack boxes for distribution. They will be working at the Episcopal Church at 1011 Vermont St.
You need only spare time to help out during the holidays. If you can't find time between holiday plans and classes, you can drop canned goods off at the Salvation Army. If you are leaving for break, drive by their office on your way out of town.
So this year, give your thanks through a show of charity and good will. To pretend that people go without food and shelter only during the holidays is naive. It would be ideal if everyone could help out every day. Volunteering this holiday season could become a habit you carry on throughout the year.
Jeff Engstrom for the editorial board
International students need turkey, too
Thanksgiving is unique to the United States. Unlike Christmas, which is celebrated all around the world, Thanksgiving is a U.S. tradition with American food for American families.
This is all the more reason to not forget about the University's international student community during Thanksgiving break. It is an opportunity to share with these visitors the most revered holiday that this country can call its own.
International Students Services has a home-stay program through which it pairs KU international students with host families in Kansas for either Thanksgiving Day or for the entire break, from tomorrow to Sunday.
Mike Ediger, assistant director of
Students should invite international students to share in the Thanksgiving holiday.
International Student Services and home-stay coordinator, said the program was successful at placing students in homes throughout Kansas. He said a family in Burns had been a host family since 1954 and every year drives up to Lawrence to pick up a group of international. Thanksgiving guests.
said he has placed 32 in the home-stay program.
Granted, the program is geared toward those international students that have recently gone through new student orientation and may know very few people at the University.
But that still leaves the majority of international students potentially studying in Watson Library when they should be spreading cranberry sauce — unique to the northeastern United States — over an inch-thick slab of turkey.
However, of the roughly 1,500 international students on campus, Ediger
So for KU students lucky enough to get to know one or many of our visitors from abroad, consider bringing them into your homes and sharing the Thanksgiving holiday with them.
Tim Harrington for the editorial board
Kansan staff
Ann Premer ... Editorial
Tim Harrington ... Associate Editorial
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” — Lesley Polei Hartley
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
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All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Ann Premer (premer@kansan.com) or Tim Harrington (tharrington@kansan.com) at 864-4810. If you have general questions or comments, email the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4810.
Perspective
Family relations more meaningful than a smile
have been permanently inspired by an old man whom I hardly know.
Traditionally, at this time of year, I am repeatedly asking my mom if she knows which
relatives are coming to our house for Thanksgiving and if she has stocked up on enough eggnog — I realize that some people think eggnog is gross. If you were to freeze eggnog and then let it thaw a little, I bet it would have somewhat of a slick, alien, gelatinous consistency. In this case, I too thoroughly would dislike eggnog. As it is, I enjoy it — but this year Thanksgiving is different, and my usual holiday considerations seem to carry little importance.
Perryman
Guest Columnist
Mike
The Saturday before last, my dad's dad, who has been battling emphysema with the assistance of about 30 percent of one lung, was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., because he could not breathe. Thursday, I went along with my dad and my little brother to visit him, and I saw a completely different man than the one I thought I knew. The short, strong and witty figure, who I remember from my childhood, barely even sunk into the white and blue hospital sheets on which he lay — unshaven and physically spent.
Despite his weak condition — which I was told had drastically improved since the previous Saturday — he was elated to see us, and as we encircled the bed, he delivered a smile that lit up the otherwise dim, melancholy room. Standing at the foot of the bed with a big smile and a loss for words, I realized, for the first time, that all of my life I have been content with my grandpa's smile, his wisecracks and the underlying, veiled wisdom that often hides within his humor.
I never ventured to learn a great deal more about my grandpa, a man who has lived through and experienced most of the triumph and tragedy of this century. Everything about what this man has experienced I have learned from secondary sources.
I'd like to know what it was like during the 1930s and 1940s, when people used to fill the night clubs in downtown Kansas City and dance into the wee hours of the morning. Not once have I set aside just a moment to ask my grandpa what it was like. He played the drums in downtown Kansas City when swing was the
rage. He sat up there and watched those people go nuts, and when he wasn't playing, I'm sure he was dancing. What it must have been like.
It is amazing how, for 22 years, I have walked up to my grandpa — whether as a child seeking a hug or a young adult seeking a handshake — and never really looked at him. I always wrapped my arms around him or shook his hand in exchange for nothing more than a big smile and a few words that would assure me that he would always be there to greet me, no matter what — I feel pretty selfish and ignorant looking back, but I am just glad I had the chance to walk into that hospital room and finally see the man in his entirety.
I realize that maybe he would love to tell me about all of the things he has experienced during his life, and maybe he wouldn't. I'll ask anyway, but I am sure that he is just as content seeing me and exchanging smiles. This is what motivated me, what will forever be a source of inspiration. I'm positive he has lived a long, hard life, and you won't know if he has any complaints because he always wears that smile. I hope that one day I will be able to conduct myself with at least a fifth of his demeanor.
My roommate has me hooked on watching old WWII movies. Although I am certain these movies must be tame accounts of the way the war actually progressed and the way the men who fought the war actually felt, I may never know for sure. I still have not asked my grandpa about the war, which is odd because he was a paratrooper who landed in France and actually fought in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. He sat in the snowy trenches — how he must have felt, how all of those men who fought must have felt — what the atmosphere must have been like before and after the war. If I never ask, I'll never know, and I think that would be a huge injustice to this man and myself.
With a simple smile and a few words Thursday, my grandpa impacted me in an immeasurable way. As we neared the end of our short visit at the hospital, talk of Thanksgiving inevitably arose, and my grandpa, who has made it to Thanksgiving each year — often just in time to mash the potatoes — said a few words with as much air as he could muster:
"Hope to see everybody on Thanksgiving."
That is all that mattered as he lay there, cramped in a small hospital room, hardly able to breathe. I have every confidence that he will be there on Thanksgiving. He lives for it, among other things.
Perryman is a Prairie Village senior in journalism.
Thanksgiving festivities not just a welcome home
Thanksgiving is almost upon us. Yeah,
you're thinking: another column in the
newspaper about Thanksgiving.
Whoon-di-doo.
Tom Winter
opinion @ kansan.com
I know you're wondering if Kansan columnists ever think about real-world issues such as race relations, the environment or alternative systems of government. Why don't we write any really sophisticated columns that make people think instead of making them groan?
I don't know. Frankly, I don't care. I just want to talk about Thanksgiving, so leave me alone.
Thanksgiving is a time
for joy and remembrance; it is a time to celebrate our common humanity and give thanks for the good things in life and not wallow in the bad.
I can't remember the last time my family sat around the table and restrained ourselves from our outrageous feast while we gave thanks for the good things in life. Come to think of it, I don't think we ever done that.
In fact, I've only known one friend whose family gave thanks for the food on the table. They were Mormons. I don't know if that is a common Mormon practice, but because that was my only experience with giving thanks, it has set a precedent in my mind for Mormon families.
It wasn't even Thanksgiving.
Maybe this year I'll give thanks. I guess I've got a lot of things to give thanks for. My heart is still beating. Technological innovations have developed corrective lenses so that the world doesn't look so fuzzy to me. They are serving turkey and gravy at the Kansas Union — at least they did Wednesday.
Although I may give thanks, it has never seemed like that was the spirit of Thanksgiving. I've always thought that the spirit of Thanksgiving was gluttony. I've always thought that the point of the holiday was to eat until you could hear your stomach stretching like a balloon about to burst.
Maybe I'm too cynical, but I've always felt like every major holiday was designed to facilitate some sort of mass sin.
Easter is for chocolate consumption. Birthdays are for vanity. The Fourth of July is for pyromaniacs. Halloween is much like Easter chocolate biodegradable, with the only
chocoholic binging season — with the only
difference being that the colors are black and orange instead of happy, fuzzy-bunny pastels. But, they both deal with the living dead. Easter is for resurrection, and Halloween is for ghosts.
But, along with the family cooking comes the family. Although, later on you will probably look forward to seeing your parents, grandparents and siblings, right now you're trying to figure out ways to conceal all of the bad things you've been doing since you entered college.
They'll ask you about your grades. You'll find yourself saying things like this: "Well, I could either end up with all A's or all D's, so expect either one." Your parents might ask you what kind of grades you need to keep your scholarship. You'll tell them that you get the scholarship regardless of whether you write a brilliant new theory on the nature of light or light up the campus for several days by burning down Wescoe Hall.
For some of you, this will be your first Thanksgiving since coming to college. Relish it. You will soon figure out, if you haven't already, how your mother or grandma is a much better cook than you. This may be the first home-cooked meal you've had in more than three months.
Christmas isn't really a day for sin — unless you count excessive caroling. In fact, it is the one day of the year when we tell the world that we love it, despite the way we act the other 364 days. New Year's Eve is, well, New Year's Eve
You may even find yourself using the word "diverse" often. Maybe you'll just say "Good lord, there are a lot of white folks there!" You might talk about all of the strange people you've seen in Lawrence. Your comments might range from: "Well, there are some people who are pretty...different" to nudging your uncle Chuck and saying "The place is full of freaks." Of course, several years from now you'll find yourself in my position, saddened, thinking "Where did all of the freaks go? I miss the freaks."
This year I think I will give thanks. I'm going to give thanks for the fact that I'm nearly done with school, for the fact that my parents still claim me and for the not-so-steady source of income that the University Daily Kansan provides me. This year, also, I think I will give thanks for the freaks. Thank you, freaks, thank you all.
— an amateur's night to binge drink. And then there's Thanksgiving.
Winter is a blue Springs, Mo., senior in biology and journalism.