The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 16

A-16 The Daily Pantagraph, Nov. 27, 1980 This holiday a first for some By The Associated Press Cooks at a Fort Chaffee, refugee camp for Cubans cooked black beans and rice and descendants of the Pilgrims rehearsed for an annual procession as the nation got ready for Thanksgiving Day. Macy's 54th Thanksgiving Day parade, a moveable medley of human and balloon celebrities and marching bands and floats, was set to roll down New York's Broadway. Two million people were expected to line the route, with another 80 million viewing on television. At the same time, lights and colored balls already were being hung on giant spruces and pines, whose first lightings many of them Thursday night officially signal the start of the Christmas season.

"Thanksgiving is being squeezed and made a minor moment in a process that culminates in Christmas and one that now starts a week or so before Thanksgiving," said one disgruntled holiday buff, American Studies Chairman Albert Stone from the University of Iowa. Officials at Fort Chaffee said they would serve the camp's 6,800 Cubans their first American-style Thanksgiving meal consisting of turkey, cranberry, sauce and giblet gravy. Black beans and rice traditional Cuban staples would be served in place of dressing. In Atlanta, the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference planned its annual Poor People's Thanksgiving Day Dinner at the Wheat Street Baptist Church. Later in the day, about 250,000 people were expected at Atlanta's traditional "lighting of the great tree" atop a downtown department store.

This year's Christmas tree is a 100-foot great northern white pine with a 50-foot spread from the North Georgia mountains. A restaurant in Hagerstown, decided to hold its Thanksgiving celebration one day early, dishing out free lunches on Wednesday. But turkey wasn't on the menu. The Country Life Natural Foods and Vegetarian Restaurant served vegetable and fruit salads, a meatless chili-noodle casserole and a soy-millet loaf. C.W.

"Fat Daddy" Nelson of Mur-rells Inlet, S.C., wasn't planning to serve turkey at his Thanksgiving Day dinner, either. Nelson, who owns a seafood market, invited 4,000 people to a fish fry to raise money for the Shriners' hospitals. President-elect Ronald Reagan planned to have Thanksgiving dinner at his secluded ranch near Santa Barbara, with his wife, Nancy, and two of his three children. President Carter and his family planned a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, their last at the Camp David, retreat. Some holiday enthusiasts were planning to burn off Thanksgiving Day calories at turkey trots.

In Seneca, S.C., 20 jogging doctors, businessmen and housewives were planning a 310-mile run across the state to raise money for the American Diabetes Association. Cuban refugees at Fort Chaffee planned their own race a chase around the camp. In Plymouth, site of the first Thanksgiving, townsfolks planned an annual Pilgrim's Progress, a re-enactment of the early settlers' procession to worship. 1 1 JViirTf iirrniiiiM.iii.mMftimi.inmimni.wwiiiii-i.irii lin i.l ---jr Towanda Kindergarten students at the fuss is about every fourth Thursday Qfnrontc fnr nnrpnfc Towanda Grade School had a good time in November. Though Thanksgiving is ZTuaems penorm lor parems perSormiBg poems and songs for pa.

great most 5.yearBolds stilf preBfer rents Wednesday. They learned what Christmas. (Pantagraph photo) Towanda youths give thanks event. "Thansgiving Day will soon be here; "It comes around but once a year. "If I could only have my way; "I'd have Thanksgiving every day!" Still, the children kept their perspective.

Thanksgiving is nice, but Christmas is still number-one. Deanne Carlin didn't hesitate when asked why Dec. 25 is her favorite day. "Because of the presents," she said. By David Pittman TOWANDA No one is more talented or cute to parents than their own children.

Children generally like to please their parents. Both children and grownups like Thanksgiving. For those reasons, it was not supris-ing Wednesday that everyone enjoyed the Thanksgiving program of the Towanda Grade School kindergarten class. What could be more cute than watching 19 5-year-olds in cardboard pilgrim and Indian costumes march around chanting: "I'd rather eat some turkey, than to be one thick and fat. "And so, with all my heart today, I'll be thankful for that." But the production, like the others that doubtless went on simultaneously at other schools throughout the country, was more than mere fun.

It was educational. for boats," reads one. "I am thankful for my bed," said another. These are obviously mature 5-year-olds. Thanks was given for everything from mothers to teddy bears, from hamburgers to a guinea pig named Sam.

Towanda children are thankful for television, butterflies, football and automobiles. Mrs. Defenbaugh said it took the students 2'2 weeks to learn their lines, make costumes, bake treats served after the show and design table decorations. "This was a way of introducing the students to the Thanksgiving story through poetry, finger plays and songs," said Mrs. Defenbaugh.

"It was a first-time thing for a lot of them." For the parents, the performance was a theatrical debut. Many sat cramped, knees raised high, in chairs obviously built for small people. Several took photographs during the show. One man even tape recorded the By the time children get to kindergarten they know what happens every fourth Thursday in November. Grownups crowd into kitchens to prepare vast quantities of food.

It's a day dedicated to stuffing turkeys and people. They know that overeating is the rule rather than the exception. It's a day when children don't have to go to school. Instead, they play football in the nearest empty lot with the second cousin rarely seen. The children in Anne Defenbaugh's kindergarten class already knew what occurs on Thanksgiving.

Wednesday they learned why. They have been indoctrinated to a bit of true Americana. The rite of passage celebrating a bountiful harvest, the seasonal change and the arrival of Europeans on the continent. Well, maybe kindergarteners don't understand all that, but they know it's a day to give thanks. The drawings on the bulletin board outside the classroom verify that.

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