Thanksgiving Day: breakfast was late by about an hour, but there was a beautiful yellow banana by each bowl of rice and in the cups was steaming coffee, and on the rice was a spoonful of sugar!
Father Gowan, Carl, Art, and others took part in the Thanksgiving prayers and service. Bedie looked handsome in his sweater made from the long drawers, and his long trousers; June was lovely in my white dress with gold belt, red ribbon in her dark hair. She sang in the choir. From our bench we could hear Mary’s rich voice singing “God Bless America.” Then everyone stood up and we three stood too while they all sang “The Star Spangled Banner” for the first time in three years. Even the birds seemed silent, listening. It swelled out into the green bowl of the garden, up into the blue sky, deep and more full of meaning than it had ever been before. I preferred listening to it, not singing, for this way we had the full effect. We stood quietly, listening and singing in our hearts. I think Jerry was afraid to attend for fear of being too deeply moved. ‘”God Save the King” followed the “Stars and Stripes,” so everyone sang what was deepest in him. his homeland.
After “The Star Spangled Banner” was sung, Jerry looked at me as though asking, “Are you all right? I am” very firmly. It was beautiful, the way we heard it.
Jerry made a good meat loaf from my half of breakfast rice, some corned beef and part of their corn meal and some curry. It was one of his best. We ate 1n the garden down here and [the family} shared their camp lettuce with a dressing of peanut butter mixed with vinegar which was made from camote water. Special Diets had camote, squash and tripe gravy for lunch. It took Jerry two hours of hard work to clean the tripe for this diet. He is one of the few who knows how to clean it and the only one willing to do it without a rake-off.
We ate leisurely, enjoying being together.
Supper was late, the line long, and Jerry brought my food—hamburgers from a camp cow, good candied camotes, our own private box lettuce, with sub-coffee from camp.
It is really something to be able to say that Carl has kept aloof from graft, with no breath of scandal or suspicions, in his position. It is an integrity which no other chairman has achieved in here. Some of them kept in position through those they shared with, in fact. The constant reelection of Carl is our great claim to democracy.
Kaye and her beloved Charlie were married at a small wedding by Carl at 4 P.M. today. The bride wore Daphne’s lovely white organdy print. There were about 16 guests at a dinner afterward, including a wedding cake. It was in two cubicles in the Ark. The Dawsons gave up their cubicle for one night honeymoon quarters. The aides all attended the ceremony and Kaye is happy, cannot imagine herself married to anvone else. So all is serene and the couple settled for life, maybe. Young people have had a hard time in here— cramped, limited, suppressed. But not any more than the married ones at that. We have all been repressed beyond endurance, with all natural inclinations damned up for three years either by the enemy or our own fanatics.
It rained hard during the ceremony and clouds drifted low about us, like wide white ribbonsthrough camp. Finally a dim moon showed and Joanne decided to have her dance exhibit. Oura enjoyed it thoroughly from the front row between Skerl’s dark beard and Miss McKim’s cheerful countenance. The girls were all barefoot, in short white gowns, with flowing hair which was most effective as they swayed, leaped or went weaving in and out, arms expressive. The real charm was in the peace and stillness, the soft footfalls and gentle running. Sakashita come in a Napoleonic swirling cape, with Yamato, to observe. A guard walked right through the path in the middle of the graceful white figures, his bayonet gleaming in the light, a contrast to the tranquility. His guttural sharp obeisance to Sakashita in the shadows behind us startled me as much as the swirl of dancers made him falter. The watery moon and the hospital spotlight gave illumination. Mary’s yoice in “Barcarolle” and others who sang could be fully appreciated in the outdoor space, and the young people closed the day joyously.