Although every Thanksgiving of my young life was spent jammed between loud Italian relatives at a table in the small kitchen of our Cape Cod in Catonsville, the most profound memory I retain of this season involves the town of Oella.

On a sunny morning in 1974, about a week before Thanksgiving, I learned a life lesson in Oella involving a frozen turkey, 20 cats and a sad little man.  

The genesis of this event occurred at my usual monthly Girl Scout meeting, held in the basement of the United Methodist Church on Melvin Avenue. To say I was a lame Girl Scout is an understatement, as I possessed none of the focus needed to complete many of the badge requirements.  While my friends memorized the Girl Scout Promise, my mind would wander. One of my favorite distractions involved the two lane bowling alley located in the hall next to our basement classroom.

My family was Catholic and had no real knowledge of any religion other than the One True Church, so the incongruence of a bowling alley in a church really piqued my interest. Was there something I didn't know about these people, maybe a secret society of Methodist Bowlers?  As my fellow Scouts diligently worked on creating necklaces out of Juicy Fruit wrappers I would muse on the possibility that I was missing out on a whole aspect of religious rituals.

Hey, what if there were racquetball courts below the Presbyterian Church down the street!? And so on and so forth until my leader would sharply call my attention back to the group, and I would realize I had completely missed the instructions on how to build a nuclear fallout shelter out of sunflower seeds.

But this meeting was different.  At this meeting my leader informed our troop that we had been assigned the great honor of collecting Thanksgiving meals and providing these meals to some of the residents of Oella.  We would collect the food over the next week, and then go together to hand-deliver the food to families living in the ramshackle row homes next to Oella Mills.

The mangled God's Eye yarn and Popsicle stick craft in my hands was forgotten as the thought of the impact I could have on these people's lives took hold of me.  In my minds' eye, I saw our troop marching from house to house, benevolently distributing food and good cheer to the appreciative poverty stricken families.  I imagined some would weep with gratitude, while others would throw themselves on my Buster Browns, clutching at my legs in thanks, while I leaned down to stroke their hair and whisper words of 9-year-old wisdom.  I couldn't wait to start handing out turkeys.

The morning of the delivery, I dressed with extra care as I wanted to make my best impression.  As a public school kid I loved any opportunity to dress in a uniform, and the Girl Scout garb was especially fabulous as I thought it made me look like an underage soldier.  My favorite part of the outfit was the sash, worn diagonally across the chest, to which my mother had painstakingly hand sewn each of the two badges I had earned in my three years as a Brownie and Junior Scout.  

It wasn't until our troop landed in Oella that I started to feel the first sense of unease. Oella in 1974 was nothing like the Oella you see today. Since construction of the Oella Mill more than 160 years before, most of Oella's prosperity had centered around the mill, and only mill workers and their families were allowed to live in the homes surrounding it (as an interesting aside, it wasn't until 1987 that the refurbished homes were allowed to be sold to those other than millworkers or their widows). As other towns grew and modernized, the homes surrounding the mill were left much as they were when first built, without public water, public sewers or paved roads. Due to declining finances, the mill was forced to close in 1972. Later that year, any hope that the mill would operate again were dashed with the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Agnes . Thus, by 1974 Oella resembled more of a recreated early 19^th century mill village than a town of the seventies, with a few big differences- the poverty was real and the outhouses were functional.

Clutching a small, frozen turkey to my chest I hesitantly knocked on the first door in the row of dilapidated houses. After a few minutes I heard slow shuffling steps, then the door opened. Instead of the grateful face of a small urchin, I was unhappily greeted by a very sad looking man wearing a dirty wifebeater. Unfortunately for both of us, the wifebeater was a few sizes too small.

"Come in, come in." the man sighed, turning around without another glance and disappearing into what looked to my 9-year-old eyes like the gloomy recesses of Hell.

I frantically looked around but saw I was alone, everyone else had fanned out to the other houses. Things were definitely not going as I'd planned. Where were the rag tag orphans? Where was the swelling music?

Taking a deep breath, I stepped into the house. Once my eyes adjusted I realized I was in a tiny living room containing the man, the low slung armchair he was sitting in, and a TV with huge rabbit ears.

Oh, and cats. I don't mean cats- I mean CATS. At least 20 of the dirtiest, scrawniest cats I'd ever seen. And they were eyeing up my turkey.

The man looked at me. "You can put the turkey over there," he said dispassionately, motioning to the top of the television. And then went back to watching TV.

As melting ice crystals from the turkey dripped over my sash and down the front of my smock top, I stood there, uncertain what to do. Why, this man was not grateful. He was not even polite. He just seemed kind of…defeated.

In that moment I took a big mental step forward. It was suddenly very clear that this man didn't welcome the turkey, or the person providing it. He didn't want to say thanks. What this man really wanted was the choice to say no thanks, the freedom to send me and my shiny uniform out the door. But he couldn't- because he and his cats needed that turkey.

And standing there, surrounded by mewling cats, I had my first adult thought- how's he going to feed his cats the day after Thanksgiving, and every day after that?

I thought about that sad little man for a long time after that day, randomly imagining him sitting on his front stoop or perhaps having to use his outhouse on a cold winter day. I decided he eventually taught his cats to walk on stilts, and lived the rest of his days happily employed by the circus. How nice to be 9 years old and able to wrap life up with a neat little bow.

As an adult, the memory of this experience still follows me. While I'll never know the exact fate of my sad friend, I'd like to think he benefitted from the explosion of real estate that Oella experienced in the eighties.

And I'll always remember the lesson I learned standing in a small house in Oella. Charity is not easily received, nor should it be selfishly given.  So, in the end, perhaps that sad little man gave me back something much greater than the Thanksgiving turkey I gave to him.