My favourite Thanksgiving memory.
I regret that I don't have a selfless story that really illuminates the spirit of Thanksgiving, but alas...
I'm Canadian, so not only does my Thanksgiving come around a month before yours, it has nowhere near the impact, or holds anywhere near the significance of yours. This is still a pretty nice memory for me, though.
Back in the day, "The thing to do" among a group of people I knew was to build a chalet at Whistler Mountain. This was long before it became THE international skit destination is is now, but it was starting to pop. People built them to own, or to flip for some pretty nice cake.
3 friends of mine were building one, and my gf at the time - later my wife, now my ex and a friend - drove up from Vancouver on spec, knowing that there would be at least something to do. We were gratefully received on the Friday night, and starting the next morning, got to work.
I know quite a lot about electrical, so I was put on cutting in the plugs and switches, which I did.
Sunday, my friend Bill and I started on the 2-floor exterior staircase. A pretty necessary thing at Whistler, sometimes. The ground was, unsurprisingly, rocky, sloping and uneven - NOT a good situation for ladders. So, Bill figured out a plan (he knows a LOT about building and carpentry), and we started building up the side of the house, using each stage as a platform for the next.
Some of the wood we attached were cleats, which later came off, but some formed parts of the structure. I had NO idea what was coming next, and was sometimes surprised at what was removed and what was left.
By the end of the day, light failing, we were at a platform, level with the 2nd floor door. The stairs got filled in later.
Not only was the light failing, we had been working non-stop from mid-morning to whatever time the sun went down on Thanksgiving weekend - 5ish, I imagine. The weather had been almost foul enough to make us give up, but Bill needed this done, and I wasn't about to shirk, so on we went.
Suffice to say that, 7 or 8 hours of sleet and near-freezing temperatures had left me half-frozen, ravenously hungry and soaking wet. The next door neighbour, Rod, who I had never met before and never did again, had opened his house to the 3 partners, my gf and I, and I don't know who else. When we came in, my gf and I got one of the bathrooms and had the best hot shower I'd ever had.
While we'd been working, and unknown to us, a couple of carloads of friends had driven up from the city and had BAGS of Thanksgiving with them. People had been cooking all afternoon, and it was ready mere minutes after that life-saving shower. Rod's chalet was not finished, but much closer than Bill, Rick and John's. Livable, in fact.
Little furniture, so some suitable supports were commandeered, two bedroom doors were taken off their hinges, and about 15 of us had the best Thanksgiving dinner I ever had, sitting on a plywood floor, with doors as a table.
Not one, but TWO turkeys, and more food than we could have eaten over the weekend, and the most camaraderie I can ever remember.
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