Thanksgiving Now and Then
A Flash Memoir
Forty years ago, I was a plebe (freshman) at West Point.
The Army football team was on fire.
Nate Sassaman, Doug Black, Clarence Jones and Jarvis Hollingsworth set an NCAA record for most 100-yard rushers in a single game in a 45 – 31 victory over Montana.
In 1984, Army beat Navy for the first time in five years, and we all proudly wore Goat Busters T-shirts under our Dress Grey.
As a plebe in Nate Sassaman’s company, I proudly delivered his cleaned Goat Busters T-shirt, along with the rest of his laundry, neatly folded and placed on his bed.
The Black Knights won a first ever bowl game invitation that year. The entire corps was released a few days early for Christmas break to encourage as many cadets as possible - at their own expense - to attend the Cherry Bowl in the Pontiac, Michigan, Silverdome.
I did not tell my parents about the early release. I did not change my ticket home to Dallas. I caught the train to New York City to visit my high school sweetheart, now attending Parson’s School of Design at the New School for Social Research.
We slept squeezed into her dorm-room bunk bed, lofted high above her desk, with a window view of the original Henry Kirke Brown statue of a horse-mounted George Washington in Union Square Park. I realized my Eisenhower Barracks dorm-room had a view of the same statue — a replica, I later discovered. Union Square has the original. We interpreted the coincidence as romantic destiny.
Heidi took me to her classes. Art school could not have been more different than my daily routine. Even in my civies - grey flannel slacks and crew-neck sweater - I felt so overdressed. My haircut was definitely out of place.
I sat on a stool in marvel and, I fear, blushing, as I watched a dozen students easily and nonchalantly sketch nude models. I was more comfortable in English class. Eager to fit in where I could, I ended up writing Heidi’s term paper on the progression of female characters in Heminway novels.
When Heid’s term came to an end, we made our way in Yellow Cab to LaGuardia. We were on the same flight home. Our brief romantic, adult interlude came to an end. Our respective parents picked us up from the Airport in Dallas and we were our parents’ children once again - sleeping in our parents’ homes, in our childhood beds and sneaking a romantic moment alone now and then.
The destiny foreseen in the coincidental shadows of George Washington statues was true and even more extraordinary than we had dreamed high aloft Heidi’s dorm-room bunk bed forty years ago.
2025 has not been a great year, but at the same time, it has.
My sense of adventure and commitment to public service has, ironically, landed me in the Government’s sights. The situation is soul-wrenching and existentially depressing not to mention bank-account draining. I could not blame Heidi if she find’s herself cursing George Washington. She has been our sole financial source now for the past two years and in the foxhole, by my side, in the battle to fend off the Government offensive.
Yet last week, over Thanksgiving weekend, we strolled through Union Square Park once again, this time with our son, Jackson. The three of us drank hot chocolate while sitting on the benches surrounding George Washington’s statue.
Following in his mother’s footsteps, Jackson attended Parsons School of Desing at the New School (“for Social Research” has since been dropped from the title). He lives in Brooklyn and works as a photographer.
He invited Heidi and me to visit. He paid for our flights from Dallas, and we stayed at his apartment. One of his four sisters and her boyfriend – Esther and Connor - joined us as well.
We celebrated Thanksgiving dinner at a Chinese speakeasy restaurant hidden within the Tin Building at South Street Seaport. On Saturday, we saw Ariana Debose and Scott Bakula in an Off Broadway production of Joseph Stein and Stephen Schwartz’s musical, The Baker’s Wife. As an added bonus, Wicked famous Stephen Schwartz was even in the audience.
On Sunday, Jackson dropped Heidi and me off at LaGuardia.
I am thankful, now and then.
