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By Skip Hellewell
The family ’ s getting together for Thanksgiving dinner , a tradition with menu and recipes etched in stone . Two guests want to bring something , but what if their candied sweet potato recipe differs from ours ? This left me pondering the first Thanksgiving dinner of the Pilgrims , grateful for a harvest to last the coming winter , and the Wampanoag Tribe , who taught them how to plant . You may have had an ancestor there . About one-fourth of Indy readers do .
Our family had two : George Soule ,
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a sort of valet to “ Mayflower ” leader Edward Winslow and a signer of the Mayflower Compact , and Marie Chilton , whose parents died the first winter , leaving her a 13-year-old orphan facing a new world . It ’ s a tradition to remember Soule and Chilton at our Thanksgiving . Another tradition is Skip ’ s Homemade Cranberry Sauce , which is much better than the stuff in the store ( contact Skip at the email below for a free copy ). During dessert , we go around the table , each expressing what we ’ re most thankful for in the past year . Here ’ s my top two for 2022 .
I ’ m thankful to former Laguna Beach Indy editor Andrea Adelson for taking a chance nearly five years ago on a rookie columnist with a dubious proposition — a column about meaning informed by faith . My argument , as I recall , was that over 80 percent of Americans self-identify as religious according to surveys , plus there were 14 churches in Laguna , each a community within itself , and this audience was generally ignored . Shouldn ’ t the Indy cover topics important to them with a column I would write ? Chutzpah .
Religion is a tough topic for newspapers — their forte is the real
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world as it happens . They give us , per the Washington Post ’ s late Phil Graham , “ the first rough draft of history .” Religion is about faith in things unseen and how to live in the present for a possible future . Adelson thought about my proposal , agreed to try a couple of columns and even gave me a “ byline .” I was such a rookie I didn ’ t know what a byline was , but I started writing . The columns were well received and Adelson , an excellent editor who knew the town , later commented , “ I didn ’ t know there was all this interest in religion .”
The column “ Finding Meaning ” incorporated an unseen third party , the “ Beautiful Wife .” Confession : The BW idea was borrowed from the nationally syndicated “ New York Times ” columnist Earl Wilson , who I read as a child . Wilson covered New York nightlife with his BW in tow . He originally called her the “ barefoot wife ,” but that didn ’ t please her , so he changed . I didn ’ t make that mistake . All of this leads to the second thing I ’ m thankful for — the BW . We attended the same college , but I still had a year to go when she graduated and began teaching in Sacramento . There were a lot of lovely girls on
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campus , but there was a special “ something ” about her that I missed . Coming home for Thanksgiving , a big event in my large family , I decided to propose . When I popped the question , she , without really thinking it through , was agreeable . Looking back over the years , I marvel that she found merit in an engineering student who carried a slide rule , drove a 1960 Studebaker ( got it for $ 160 at auction ), and could only afford a tiny diamond .
One more thing : There ’ s an award given annually in Laguna for “ contributions of a spiritual nature .” It ’ s based on the global Templeton Award , a $ 1.3 million prize first given to Mother Theresa but also to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn . Laguna ’ s version will be awarded this Sunday ( without the $ 1.3 million ) at the 4 p . m . Thanksgiving service at United Methodist Church sponsored by Laguna ’ s Interfaith Council . Come see who ’ s making a difference . There ’ s meaning in that .
Skip fell in love with Laguna on a ‘ 50s surfing trip . He ’ s a student of Laguna history and the author of “ Loving Laguna : A Local ’ s Guide to Laguna Beach .” You can email him at skip @ lovinglaguna . com .
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