Happy Thanksgiving 2025

Twelve Year Old Me 1974

Happy Thanksgiving Morning 2025.

I wanted to say a quick hello with well wishes before the parades march through the television and into The Meirink Home. I am already distracted from excitement, and the parades haven’t even started! It’s been a tradition for as long as I can remember.

Growing up, I was a baton twirler - as in - I was really good at it. I could throw that baton up so high, I am surprised I didn’t knock a bird out. Okay. Slight exaggeration… But only slight.

I got my first wooden baton in kindergarten at Roe School in the Dogtown area of St. Louis City. Only first graders and older were allowed to have metal batons. Supposedly, Kindergarteners might hurt someone with a metal baton, but first graders would not. It did not make sense then, and it does not make sense now. But, hey! It was a baton, and it was mine.

My grade school was K-8 which meant, I was in the same school for nine years! Every year culminated with a school parade of off beat drummers, squeaky bugles, and batons getting tossed and dropped. It was exhilarating as people lined the streets in lawn chairs and clapped. I practiced all year for that moment!

I could write forever about the significance of this part of my childhood, but I have a pumpkin pie to make and parades are about to start.

Once again, Happy Thanksgiving!

May your own pleasant memories revive your soul with gratefulness.

Mary