Thanksgiving, October 1974

Late add on: We spent the afternoon playing bridge with the local seniors. Okay, so how does this work? Well today with twelve of us at the seniors' hall, we got to play seven rounds of four hands, each time with a different partner. It costs each person twenty-five cents to play with the winner getting two-thirds of the total pot and the lowest score wins the leftover third. Mom finished in second place and I finished fourth - no money for us. We did get a choice of tea or coffee and some cookies.

Once we got home, I went over to help Denise with her accounting program. An hour and a half later, all was repaired and she was back in business doing the business accounts. And now, I'm busy listening to the Senators play the Leafs. The game is already tied at 1-1.

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Well, it's American Thanksgiving Day today. Since I have been busy working on scanning the slides from the 70s, I thought that it would be a good day to show some photos from a Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, October 1974. Though we were living in Camsell Portage at the time, we had time off so that I could attend my first teacher's conference being held in Saskatoon. It was natural that we would travel to Wynyard to spend time with the family, especially since Mike was getting married.

Maureen and her mother were enjoying a post-wedding gathering on the family farm. Mother and daughter, both strong women, both great cooks. One was a grandmother and one was expecting a first child. One was and still is trying to be like the other. I realise that this wasn't an October photo, it was from July, just before we left for Camsell and the wedding was Emil and Marilyn's.

Well, July is also the time to use the garden produce to make soup, borscht or creamed vegetable soups. Grandma Kohuch is always glad to have a helping hand with the task of cutting up veggies for soup.

On the right, is a picture of Grandpa Kohuch, or Tut as we called him. He is dressed for Mike's wedding standing tall and soldierly for the camera. There is no doubt that he was a proud man.

He had good reason to be proud. He raised fourteen kids somehow on his small pioneer farm in the scrub hills southwest of Wynyard.

And then there is a photo of me in my finest, a new suit made by Maureen. I don' know if the suit fits the "bush" dweller that I had become. I guess in a way, I had become a modern day version of the old 'coureur de bois'.

In this Ukranian family, I guess I looked more like a mad Rasputin than a French-Canadian voyageur. It must be the beard and the black wavy hair.

And the masterpiece - Maureen and Mike, brother and sister. What can I say? Well, they still are two of the best people I have ever known. And for all of this, I am thankful.