A famous comedian (whose name evades me) once said that Thanksgiving was a great but terrible holiday, claiming it was no wonder most of the world hated us: we have a holiday where we stuff food into more food and then proceed to gorge ourselves. God bless America and our overabundance.
Thanksgiving is the best, though. It takes down all the depressing holidays because it's anything but. It beats out the gift-giving holidays because it has no rampant consumerism attached to it. Comparing Thanksgiving to New Years is comparing apples to oranges, except by apples, I mean genetically perfect grown-in-the-Garden-of-Eden oranges, which, when compared to regular oranges, are superior in every way.
We feast on turkey, a noble bird - so noble in fact that Ben Franklin himself advocated choosing it as our national bird instead of that scavenger, the Eagle. It's also famous for tryptophan, a literal kryptonite of a relaxant, which gives the term "food coma" new meaning. And then comes the mashed potatoes and the stuffing. Thanksgiving is a monument to America, branded in our culture like cattle.
This Thanksgiving Break will usher in my 22nd year on this Earth, walking hand in hand with that inexorable, depressing idea that the passage of time is more permanent than we. Boys and girls, being almost 22 is crazy. That means that I was a freshman in high school eight years ago.
What comes next for me - and for most seniors - is unclear. An obscure haze has descended on the pre-prescribed life that our parents laid out for me. There's grad school, of course, but seeing as my professional goals aren't clear yet, I see no reason to shovel more money into the bloated pockets of another university. Finding a job is probably necessary and probably difficult. Moving back in with the 'rents is slowly becoming an unavoidable reality.
Yet perhaps the worst thing about being older is that you start noticing the changes to the world you've spent your life naively wandering through. Old-standing traditions are abandoned, paradigms are shattered, and things once considered sacred are sacred no more.
I've watched, along with most, the birth of a new breed of Star Wars fans. We all saw the train wreck "The Phantom Menace," and hated Jar Jar Binks and his species. But let's face it, people. Despite the fact that we don't like them, despite how we shrug off their contribution to the victory over the forces of evil, they are no different than the ewoks. In "Return of the Jedi," we had cute little teddy bears waging war, and in "Menace," we had equally useless fish people. So why do we love the bears? Nostalgia. It was awesome, as little kids, to see a bunch of safety-blanket look-alikes saving the universe. Now that we're older, that same idea in different form seems ludicrous. But there's a new army of fans out there, and though I like what they like, I can't seem to reconcile this difference.
The Used and My Chemical Romance covered Queen's "Under Pressure," and the radio is playing it like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. All their cover really amounts to is a bunch of "scream-o" bull, unlike the totally legit and amazing original. At what point did it become not only OK, but socially acceptable, to cover something by Queen? Vanilla Ice ripped them off, but look what happened to him - relegated to a doomed existence of the one-hit wonder that everyone knows is the intellectual property of real geniuses. Queen needs at least another 30 years before being covered... right? Apparently not.
Video game controllers now have more buttons than we have fingers. "The Simpsons" and "Seinfeld" are being replaced by humorless and inane shows like "Tyra" and "Dance 360." Zoos are suddenly no longer cool. The candy bar Whatchamacallit has fallen by the wayside. A fancy new CGI movie about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is due out in 2007, which will no doubt be horrible, yet will still manage to eclipse the cinematic glory that was the original film.
What in the good lord (or any deity that you believe in)'s name happened to the good old days? Do they eventually slip into oblivion with youth? I remember and miss the days when it was illegal to buy cigarettes and porn, and when drinking beer was still against the law. But those days are long past.
My point, after having prematurely depressed all you underclassmen and made all the seniors undoubtedly more uncomfortable in their last year is this: that famous comedian I referenced earlier made claim that Thanksgiving is both a great and terrible holiday. I couldn't agree more. While the holiday is a milestone for growing older, it is also a tradition, and I'll be damned if it ever changes. So go home and enjoy your turkey and mashed potatoes. Let the tryptophan put you to sleep. And know that even as time keeps on slipping, Thanksgiving will always be there to ground us.
Alex Sherman is a senior majoring in architectural studies. He can be reached via e-mail at alexander.sherman@tufts.edu.
