Excerpt

The Todd living quarters in Jakarta, Indonesia
Photograph from Watch Out For The Elephants! photographic journal, courtesy of Ann and Angela Todd

Excerpt from Watch out for the Elephants! Book

A “ROYAL” THANKSGIVING

It was time for Norma and Jim to begin plans and preparations for their first Thanksgiving away from home. A verbal invitation had been made aboard ship, now formal invitations must be sent. The invites had to go out in early November. Some shipmates were living as far away as Lebanon.

A family Thanksgiving in the United States is a joyful gathering of loved ones, but there was a lot of preparation to be done: menu planning, food shopping, table settings and the like. In Cairo, since it was to be a sit down affair, they also had to arrange for place settings. Abdul, it was decided, would need some help with the serving and cleanup so he arranged for two assistants for the evening. It was to be a team effort. One servant would work in the kitchen keeping up with the dishes and making sure the food was presentable, while the other two would serve. The Thursday afternoon of the event, my folks received a last minute response from one more guest, which increased the group from twelve to thirteen. Norma relayed this to Abdul and he immediately looked concerned. “What is wrong Abdul?” she asked.

“It is a big problem, since we only have matching service settings for twelve people,” he said. Mom figured she had a solution and instructed Abdul to place the mis-matched setting at either the head or foot of the table, where she and my Dad would be seated. Abdul was not happy! The local people at that time considered it bad luck to have an odd number of guests and mismatched table settings. Norma told Abdul not to worry about it and concentrated on arrangements for dessert and coffee.

The guests began arriving from early in the evening. Some traveled far and arrived with suitcases. By 6pm the last of the guests arrived and everyone was enjoying hors d’oeuvres and beverages in the living room. My guess is that they sipped on a sherbet-like lime punch that was Mom’s favorite drink to serve, and homemade pizza squares. Throughout the years, I loved having my own samplings of these treats, when Ann and I would have our own “cocktail parties” in our room before the real guests arrived.

The conversation was lively. Everyone shared their stories of adjusting to life in the region, resulting in much camaraderie and a lot of laughter.

For Norma and Jim the joyous reunion with their shipmates felt like a warm family gathering.

At about 8pm, rivaling a peacock in splendor, decked out in a gold, maroon and purple brocade uniform, Abdul quietly approached my father to advise that dinner was ready. Jim stood up and announced that dinner was served. He then led the procession of guests through to the dining area while Mom brought up the rear. He opened the double doors leading to the dinning room let out a gasp and stopped dead in his tracks. The line began backing up as one guest after another bumped into the person in front of them. Thinking that my Dad had temporarily lost his mind, Mom went to the front of the line to see what was wrong. All Dad could do was point at the dining room. (I sure wish I had been around to see what they saw but they described it so many times Ann and I felt as though we actually had been there.).

The table was literally glowing!