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Crosscurrents

Preserving holiday memories for future hunger pangs

Margaret Katcher
/
KALW News
Audio Pie

This story most recently aired in the 11/23/2022 Crosscurrents episode.

Thanksgiving week makes us feel things. Lots of things. About history, about family, about memory. Last year, reporter Margaret Katcher brought a recorder to her holiday table, but found herself wondering about her impulse to document the moment.

Thanksgiving week makes us feel things. Lots of things. About history, about family, about memory.

The week has always been particularly special for my family – we’re scattered across the country, but we’ve prioritized coming together, in New York, for as long as I can remember. Two of the fathers in my family are now facing different specters — age and disease — so I had mortality on the brain.

As it turns out, I’m obsessive about embalming the present, maybe in hopes that preserved memories will have future magical powers. You might not think mortality makes for good dinner table conversation. But I took out my microphone anyway.

Crosscurrents