{"id":3536,"date":"2022-11-21T11:03:53","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T16:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=3536"},"modified":"2022-11-21T11:03:53","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T16:03:53","slug":"a-thanksgiving-invitation-to-grace-ocasios-family-reunion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2022\/11\/21\/a-thanksgiving-invitation-to-grace-ocasios-family-reunion\/","title":{"rendered":"A Thanksgiving Invitation to Grace Ocasio\u2019s Family Reunion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thanksgiving and family reunions go hand in hand. \u00a0This pairing is reflected in Lydia Maria Child\u2019s famous Thanksgiving poem \u201cOver the River and Through the Wood,\u201d which first appeared in Child\u2019s 1844 book, Flowers for Children<\/em>.\u00a0 This poem is all about children traveling through the woods in order to visit their grandparents on Thanksgiving Day. \u00a0As is stated in one of the stanzas, \u201cWhen Grandmother sees us come, \/ she will say, \u2018O, dear, the children are here, \/ Bring a pie for everyone.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The topic of family reunions is of special interest to Charlotte poet Grace Ocasio. In fact, her 2020 poetry collection is titled Family Reunion.\u00a0 <\/em>For more information about this collection, please click on the following link:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.broadstonebooks.com\/shop\/p\/family-reunion-poetry-by-grace-c-ocasio<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently contacted Grace and asked her if any of the poems in Family Reunion<\/em> have connections to Thanksgiving.\u00a0 She said yes, and she shared the following story with me:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Thanksgiving wasn\u2019t Thanksgiving unless we (my family and I) attended one of Great-Aunt Esther\u2019s family gatherings.  Of course, she wasn\u2019t the one cooking on these occasions\u2014it was my Great-Uncle Calvin who prepared all the foods.  As soon as we walked through Great-Aunt Esther\u2019s door, we could smell the goodness of all the great food. There was sliced ham, turkey roasted golden-brown crisp, string beans, macaroni and cheese, stuffing, and a panoply of cakes and pies.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After we had all eaten, some of us got up to dance.  The Bump was the latest dance craze then.  My female cousins giggled attempting to execute other dances besides The Bump while my male cousins stood on the sidelines watching.  Uncle Arnold, fresh from South Carolina, one of the few relations coming up to New York from the South, performed a simple dance of placing his hands on his belt and slightly pulling up his pants while stepping from side to side.  Again, there were giggles from my female cousins.  Uncle Arnold\u2019s dance might have passed for just enough movement on <\/em>Soul Train.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bored after a while from dancing, I\u2019d wander around Aunt Esther\u2019s three-storied house, gazing at family photos.  Chastity, one of my cousins, loomed larger than life in one of the photos, posing like a model with hands on her hips, her right leg extended slightly with her right foot tilted in front of her left foot.  In a different photo, Tanya, her older sister, sat on her father\u2019s shoulder. She looked to be about four years old.  These are the memories that linger, tease me, and turn on like an old television show when I least expect them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I then asked Grace for permission to reprint the poem in which she wrote about spending Thanksgiving with her Aunt Esther, and she kindly agreed: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I thank Grace for sharing her poem and her memories of celebrating Thanksgiving at her Aunt Esther\u2019s home in Mount Vernon, New York, and I wish everyone in Storied Charlotte a happy Thanksgiving. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanksgiving and family reunions go hand in hand. \u00a0This pairing is reflected in Lydia Maria Child\u2019s famous Thanksgiving poem \u201cOver the River and Through the Wood,\u201d which first appeared in Child\u2019s 1844 book, Flowers for Children.\u00a0 This poem is all about children traveling through the woods in order to visit their grandparents on Thanksgiving Day. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storied-charlotte"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3536"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3543,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536\/revisions\/3543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}