Editor’s Note; Amy Dicketss is a columnist from England. What follows are her exploits in America.
What can I tell you about my first Thanksgiving? I think it was like many first experiences: eye-opening, emotionally scarring and completely unforgettable.
For my Thanksgiving break I was invited up to Montana to experience small-town, country living. What an experience it was.
Small-town America is like nothing I have ever experienced before.
It is possible to legitimately take a nap in the middle of the road without fear of anything coming by and running you over. To this day I am still unsure as to whether I was actually in Montana or on the set of Gilmore Girls.
Furthermore, this was ranch-and-hunting country, so stuffed animal heads appear to be the norm in interior decoration. It is highly unsettling to feel judged by the severed head of an elk when paying for a drink in a gas station, or have the floating head of a moose look down on you as you try to watch the Macy’s Day Parade on the television on Thanksgiving day.
The Macy’s Day Parade was a first for me. The endless stream of lesser-known American singers missing their song cues were, in my opinion, completely upstaged by the more famous people — or puppets, to be exact — taking the stage. Let it be known for the record that Big Bird wasn’t even in control of his own mouth and managed to mime every line perfectly. Shame on you, C-list Disney stars, shame on you.
Then came the main event. No, not the Rockettes and their abnormally high leg kicks, but the Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey was brought to the table with all the reverence of a newborn baby being presented to its parents, if those parents were about to cover it in gravy and devour it. And devour we did. If eating turkey and mash until I want to puke is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
However, Thanksgiving day itself wasn’t the only new experience I had over the Thanksgiving period. Being in Montana meant that I was obligated to become a country girl for five days, and boy did it open my eyes. The only dead animal I had seen before I came to Montana was a dead fish won at the State Fair, and the sight of that little orange trooper floating at the top of his temporary home in the coffee pot haunts me still.
The first night I spent in Montana I was innocently led into someone’s barn only for the lights to be turned on to reveal the full horror of a deer hanging from the ceiling, tongue out, stomach open, blood dripping.
It turns out dead animals, if not beheaded and inexplicably mounted in public service areas, can be found hanging in every barn in the state.
Over one long weekend I saw more flesh and slit-open stomachs than sees a butcher. But once the initial feelings of “they killed Bambi’s mama!” began to subside I could see that this was just another custom in this foreign land, and despite the surface appearances of blood and gore and the one friend who decided to dance with that awful hanging deer, this was in no way cruel. In fact the meat that comes from these animals is undoubtedly more ethical than anything being sold in a supermarket.
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For as many deer and elk that I saw skinned and hung up from the rafters, I saw hundreds more grazing on gorgeous open land (albeit through binoculars as I was taken out to hunt them). These animals lead much better lives than anything commercially raised and killed. And for the people who kill them it is a way of life.
And what an amazing way of life it is. Every morning I woke up surrounded by snow-capped mountains and spent the days racing round open pastures on four-wheelers, spotting bucks running across the horizon and looking up at more stars than I ever knew existed. This was real America — farming and hunting and exploring. And when I was in the hot springs surrounded by the snow and looking up at those stars I couldn’t think of any better place to be.
Endless thanks to Greer Crabtree, Nate Helle and their families for not judging this strange English girl too much and giving me the most wonderful first Thanksgiving possible.
