Side Story: Unlikely Thanksgiving

Note: This is a purely story based blog post. As such there will be no new photos. However, if you are interested in the effect a lack of sleep has on a teenager traveling the states, this post is definitely for you. Without further ado, let's get into the story.

To be quite honest, I was not excited for Thanksgiving this year. I've never really loved the holiday, but this year was easily the least excited I've ever been for it. Due to the nature of my trip-and my location being far away from family-Thanksgiving was looking like a pretty bleak day. Not only were all the YMCAs gonna be closed in my area, but so were pretty much every store in town. Even though I didn't love Thanksgiving, I was still determined to prevent my day from becoming me freezing in my car and watching movies. On Wednesday morning, I cracked open my computer and started doing research on what events and stores were open on Thanksgiving. I discovered that select Starbucks locations would be open on the day and that the St. Mary Mother of God Catholic Church was holding a Thanksgiving lunch for the less fortunate and anyone who would be alone on Thanksgiving.

I woke up around 8 am on Thursday, but the lunch didn't start until 11 am, so I killed some time by starting the fifth and final season of Stranger Things-it was safe to say my Thanksgiving was off to a good start! Eventually, 11 am grew closer and closer, so I packed up the car and drove over there.

About to get a Thanksgiving meal at the church

As expected, there was a line when I got there. The church had organized it like a cafeteria line, so there were a series of tables that you would walk past one by one with each table having a different traditional Thanksgiving entree. As we waited in line, me and the guy in front of me started chatting. We talked about other people in the line and various aspects of the church that we liked-like the design or the fact that they were putting this on. I'm not 100% sure, but through various statements he seemed to convey that he had only recently become homeless and came to South Bend a few days ago to be closer to his family in Memphis. When I asked him if he was gonna keep heading to Memphis or spend some time in South Bend, he said he was gonna settle down in South Bend for a little while. He told me that he had a homeless friend who had been all over and told me about the various homeless projects various states had. I speculate that because he had just become homeless and that whole world was so foreign to him that that was very much at the forefront of his mind.

After about 30 minutes in line, we finally made it to the food and loaded out plates. Unfortunately, despite him being a cool guy and us having a conversation going, I never got his name. I figured we would probably sit together, but as I entered the mess hall, a volunteer kid asked me if I wanted to sit at his table. While I did want to sit with the guy I was just talking to, I also figured this whole event was a good opportunity to be social, so I took the volunteer boy up on his offer. While a couple people filtered in and out of our table, there were five people that were the main stays at the table, along with me. To my right was a friendly guy named Corey, who was homeless but had big dreams of starting his own kitchen. To his right was a lady named Marie, who used to be a fellow car lifer, but recently had her car towed when she left her car at a gas station. She told me it was impounded and the trial to get it back was happening soon, but she was quite fearful that she wouldn't be able to pay for it anymore. To my left was a 20-something-year-old kid named Peyton. He was a chill guy, but his slang and disposition was very much that of someone who acts like a punk or a street gangster. Despite that, I still found him to be a chill guy and we had some nice dialogue. To his left was Deshaun, who was displayed the same punk, street gangster disposition, but to an even higher degree. Again, neither of them bothered me and we were cool, but it was kind of funny to observe-especially when I noticed that Deshaun had a pair of sports shorts under his jeans, so he could pull his jeans down below his butt.

For most of the event, it was just the five of us chatting and eating, but about halfway through, a 20-something-year-old volunteer named Carol joined our table. She acknowledged that she technically supposed to be waiting on tables, but she preferred to be social and talk to people at the tables. As a whole, I was pretty happy with my group and we had fun conversations about our hobbies and our favorite movies.

Additionally, I was shocked at how quality the event was. When I first arrived, I assumed the food would be cafeteria quality, we would stand in line for a long time, get our food cafeteria style, and then sit down and eat. I assumed we would have to get our own drinks-if drinks were even available. To be clear, this idea didn't bother me at all-after all, it is free food. However, I was only right about my second and third assumptions. The food was actually genuinely good. Usually when you make so much food for so many people, the quality goes exponentially down, but this was not the case for this event. Sure the food wasn't amazing, but I had a fun time savoring my food and deciding what to eat next. On top of that, we were all basically treated like royalty. The volunteers would serve us drinks and refill those drinks when they got low, so we didn't even have to get up. Some of the volunteers even walked around with traditional Thanksgiving desserts and offered them to us.

I honestly thought the whole execution was so sweet and special. Most of the people that had gotten food there were definitely homeless. As a result, they can't afford to go to restaurant-or anywhere for that matter-to be waited on. This was really their only chance. And the best part was-it was completely free. It's safe to say that I had a really good time at the Thanksgiving meal and it captured the Thanksgiving spirit.

However, the event did eventually end at 1 pm. At first, I was quite disappointed, as I'd have to spend the rest of the day just killing time. Fortunately, as they were cleaning up the event, I remembered that a nearby Starbucks was open. I drove to the store, ordered myself a latte, and watched more of Stranger Things season 5. The Starbucks closed at 5 pm, so I spent the rest of the day just killing time and making dinner.

Chilling at Starbuck's for a little while

As it stands, I had a really good Thanksgiving. In fact, this may be one of my fondest Thanksgivings, due to the fact that I was really dreading it and I had a totally new experience. If I ever find myself spending Thanksgiving alone again, I'll remember that Starbucks is open and try to find a social place to share a meal with people!