I am blessed with many Thanksgiving adventures, ridiculous to sublime. My dear niece-like substance Stefanie is now climbed up and over the half-century mark and still is profoundly statuesque and beautiful. When she was 8, we had an epic Thanksgiving dinner, buttressing tables outside to seat dozens of diners, thankful to not-so-much.  I sat across from Stef. She was 8. Mid-dinner, she asked me to pass the salt. Not being able to resist to turn this not into a teaching moment but an insufferable one, I asked, sing-songy, “What do we say-saaaay…?”  Without missing a beat, the apple of my pie offered, “… pass the salt, damn you?”  One of my life’s best moments. I smiled, tilted my head and said, “THAT’S my girl!!”  Years ago, Stef was stricken with a near-deadly disease and since has suffered from Registered Democratism. For decades now, every two years, I call her on Election Day and merrily remind that the polls will open tomorrow and don’t forget to vote. She cheerfully thanks me. “I woulda forgot!! Thank you, John Boston! I’ll make sure to go to the corner elementary school and vote!” We’re longtime grown-ups now, at work, but chat for a while. She cheerfully reminds me to vote tomorrow Wednesday as well, adding she can email me a list of issues and her liberal candidates recently escaped from mental institutions. “I will clasp my hands together on my bodice and look forward to receiving your recommendations,” I reply.  It’s nice to have a treasure like Stef in my life. No. It’s more than that. It’s a blessing, something you should take the time to stop and for which to thank God Himself because accidents like this just don’t happen. Someone, Some Thing you can’t see, is giving you gifts.  My best pal Phil decades ago married a gal named Katie, a Texas society flower who was genetically stricken with an inability to cook. Can’t boil water if she were provided a working stove, metal pot and H20. She, too, is of the liberal bent. They invited me to Chicago for Thanksgiving and it wasn’t until I was at LAX when she texted me, cheerfully adding all the holiday gobble-dee-goop about looking forward to seeing me, make sure I bring a jacket and, oh, by the way, the Thanksgiving meal would be vegan. Cabbage. Brussel sprouts. Squash. Yams. No butter. No salt. No gravy. No butter, which was OK because there’d be no biscuits on which to focus my attention.  The next day, Thanksgiving Thursday, I walked to the little corner market a couple blocks from their house and bought two six packs of Coke and $40 worth of teriyaki beef jerky. I left the dinner table several times, sneaking off to my room to tear off several strands of life-giving dried and preserved salted meat, nearly swooning with each bite and yelling back, like a beast when Katie called to ask if I were OK.  A bunch of Fillmore pals got together for the honored tradition of slow-cooking several turkeys in an orange grove the day before Thanksgiving. The great Pilgrim birds were stuffed, wrapped in foil then burlap bags. They were buried in the communal underground oven for the next-day feast. Come Thursday mid-morning, we met at the grove and dug up the birds. My dear childhood pal, Mayor Chango (“Monkey,” en Englais) was frantically shoveling, looking for our bird. Our turkey was MIA. I glanced over at a tree and there, leaning against but not smoking a cigarette, was our fowl. The ever-helpful mayor and former state assemblyman Ernie Villegas had helped everyone there the day before, but, forgot to bury his own bird. We had Chinese take-out that Thanksgiving. It was just delicious and a meal I’ll never forgot. Nor let Ernie.  My parents weren’t big on holidays. One day drifted into the next. When they were in their dotage, they’d visit Carl’s Jr. on Lyons, and sans Indians or cranberry sauce, would consume fries, Coke and cheeseburger. By default and defense, I was the entertainment, the spoon that stirred the eggnog. And, as you’ve guessed by now, I am woefully wicked. That one cloudy Thursday, we took our trays to sit. Alone, because there’s absolutely no one in their right mind who goes to Carl’s Jr. on Thanksgiving, we were presented with our fast food. I’d be the good peacemaker and provide levity, conversation and entertainment. Just to see, that one Thanksgiving, I decided I wouldn’t offer a single bit of dialogue. I wanted to find out if Mom or Dad would start the conversation. They didn’t. We sat, the entire 20 minutes, in silence. Well. Except for the wrinkling of paper burger wrappers and soda slurping. Finally, it was dear Pops who suggested, “I’m done. We should go.” We got to the parking lot and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I hugged them, told them I loved them — bunches — and wished them a Happy Thanksgiving. I’ll never forget their reaction. They laughed, were happy as children.   And that — is Thanksgiving.  It should be not a daily practice, but one at least on the quarter hour. Sure, there’s football and warm houses filled with mellifluous odors. If you’re lucky, there’s laughter. But hidden within Thanksgiving is the magical solution to every problem known, and unknown, to man — Gratitude. Instead of furrowing a brow or snarl, summon a smile. Be thankful for the very thing that irks you so. You don’t have to be a church person for even the thumpiest of Bible thumpers can suffer, sometimes to the end of days, from a lack of — sincere — gratitude. Got a butthead at work? Be grateful for her. Wish good things for her (or him) and in abundance.   Bills due? Be thankful. Don’t wish they’d go away. Muster a sincere and warm smile and give thanks. Why? In an oddball way, that’s when true solution comes, true solution to problems of limitation, lack of hope, pizzazz, meaning, purpose.  Celebrate Thanksgiving every 15 minutes. Set your watch. I’m going to …  Visit John Boston’s johnlovesamerica.com.  The post John Boston | Turkey Day: The Key to Daily Life appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.