Well, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

With family conflicts, we're "celebrating" Friday. That's okay. I can concentrate on football games better today. Once you're retired, it doesn't matter which day you eat turkey (or whatever).

Speaking of eating: In my years of eating with others, I'm of the opinion that Americans are pigs when it comes to manners and habits.

One would think teachers would act civil at the lunch table, but no. And the volunteers I ate with in Vermont were even worse. My sons-in-laws are "worser" yet.

People eat with their mouths open--often while talking. They make chewing noises (think pigs). They have no "table manners", holding utensils wrong. I've witnessed no one in my memory that knows how to hold a fork correctly while cutting meat on a plate. It's NOT full fisted (it's using index finger behind the tynes). They look like savages. "Yum yum, eat 'em up"! (Little Rascals episode)

Besides regular manners, evidently, speed counts. The first one with a clean plate wins. Teachers sort of had to eat fast. They only had 20 minutes (no problem for all but me).
But the Vermonters had no excuse. At one dinner meal, I actually spoke my mind when I was still eating while dessert was being served. I hadn't even had "seconds" before food was wisked away. I asked "What's the rush?", and proceeded to expound the virtues of eating slowly. (They did better the following evening.) For my daughter's husbands, it's one big gulp--fish-like! Here one second, gone the next. (Now is when I'd like to post a photo of my HUGE son-in-law from Honduras. I'll try. Nope--"size too large")

180 years ago, Jon Sanderson, an American in Paris, said, "The French dine to gratify, we to appease appetite. We demolish dinner, they eat it." T'was ever thus.

Use your manners, slow down, savor, appreciate. And thank the cooks!