Early Thanksgiving 

It was hot. It was the middle of November, and it was hot inside. It was cold outside, but almost unbearably warm inside Memorial cafeteria. Several people stood in front of me in line. The line had not moved for several minutes, so I ventured ahead to see what was causing the holdup. The problem was that they had run out of chicken. The choices left were liver and onions and pancakes. Everyone in line had elected to wait for more chicken.

“I can’t believe it,” said the girl standing next to me in line. “Whoever heard of pancakes for supper?” None of the food looked exactly appetizing to me. I knew if I could just hold out on the food for one more week, I’d be home for Thanksgiving. The food at our house was always fantastic at Thanksgiving.

We continued to wait. Finally, the cook sent out what proved to be an unpopular decision. “No more chicken,” said the server. That went over great with all of us who had spent the last fifteen minutes waiting. We had to face the facts. We were forced to choose between pancakes and liver and onions. I opted for pancakes. The meal was extraordinary in its own way that night.

As I sat alone in the cafeteria, dividing my bites between two rubberized hotcakes and a stale green salad with blue cheese dressing, I recalled some of the events of the previous three months in my thoughts. It had been a busy semester. I was tired. I was sick of books, sick of class, sick of reading, sick of dorm food and slightly more homesick than I had been when I arrived at school last August. I had noticed that the days just before Thanksgiving often caused similar syndromes in other students.

Most of us were just basically tired of what we were doing. I knew I would be ready to hit it again after Thanksgiving, but that particular night I was simply tired of being a college student. For a minute, I almost wished I were a kid again. The tests, assignments, projects, and other activities were just about to get to me. I had four major tests the week before Thanksgiving. Right then, I didn’t care what kind of performance I had on those tests.

I had finished my “meal.” I dumped my tray, grabbed a banana fudgesicle for dessert and left the cafeteria. When I reached my dorm room, I was greeted by yet another heat wave. All of us wondered when the university was going to realize that none of us wanted it to be eighty degrees in the room in the winter. I looked at my desk. The books were still there. I turned on the television. The evening news was just beginning. The big story of the day was still the hostages being held by Iranian students in the United States Embassy in Tehran. In addition to a story on the hostages, the news showed a film of various anti-Iranian protests which had occurred on college campuses that day. Students carried posters that read “Nuke Iran,” “Camel Jockeys Go Home,” “Kill Khomeini,” “Camel Jockeys Take a Bath,” and “Keep the Shah, Send Them Carter!” People were getting really irate over this controversy. The rest of the news was pretty boring. I turned it off when the weather came on.

For the next two hours, I studied. At least I tried to study. After reading economic theory for about an hour, I decided to call the airlines and reconfirm my reservations for a flight home Thanksgiving. I read for about another half hour. I glanced at the clock and realized that I had to lead a Bible study in about thirty minutes. It was hard for me to get excited about leading a Bible study that particular night. I had asked a member of the football team to share with our group that night. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to say much. 

I arrived about five minutes early at the study room where our Bible study group met every week. The guys drifted in, and finally our guest speaker showed up. I think we all enjoyed listening to him talk about religion and football. As the huge offensive lineman delivered his testimony, I noticed a new face in the crowd. I had never seen the guy at one of our meetings before. He was a foreigner. After an hour of discussion with the football player, I prepared to close the meeting.

It was customary to ask if anyone had any prayer requests, so I did. I was even tired of asking for prayer requests. Usually nobody had any anyway. That appeared to be the case this time. Just as I started to close in prayer, the visitor said something. “Most of you know I am from Iran. I would like for you to pray for my country. I wish everything be stabilized,” he said quietly in somewhat broken English. Everyone nodded in agreement, so when I prayed, I mentioned the situation in Iran. After the closing prayer, I thanked the football player for coming and gave the “goodbye, see-you-next-week” treatment to most of the people who were regular attenders. 

After the meeting, several of us began to ask the foreigner questions. His name was Reza. He was from Tehran, Iran. For the next ten minutes, I learned more about Iran from talking to him than I had learned from listening to hours upon hours of news broadcasts. As everyone else left, I stayed in the room and kept talking to Reza. We began to get into a pretty deep discussion about the controversy in Iran. He asked me to come down to his dorm room so that he could explain the situation more fully. When we got to his room, he apologized for its condition. “I am sorry things are this way,” he said. “People got into my room this weekend and wrote bad things on the wall and burned some of my belongings.” 

“How did they get in?” I asked. 

“My roommate was taking a shower, and he left the door open,” Reza answered. 

I never had considered myself to be exactly pro-Iranian, but I saw no sense in people destroying Reza’s property simply because he happened to be an Iranian student in the United States. Reza and I began to discuss the situation in Iran in more detail. I found this discussion much more interesting than economics. I think what I learned that night may prove to be more important to me than economics ever will be.

Reza showed me a map of Iran, a map of the nation’s oil reserves, and a map of the Persian Gulf. He also explained to me the tyranny of the Shah’s rule and the religious overthrow by Khomeini. He tried to explain the state of anarchy which his country was in at that time. He said Iran had never had a democratic form of government. Reza indicated that he did not favor the Shah’s regime, but he seemed to be even more violently opposed to Khomeini’s. He even explained to me what the Ayatollah meant. I learned many things from Reza that night. After we had rehashed the issues of the Iranian crisis several times, Reza said, “I sum it up in one sentence: The Shah was bad, Khomeini is worse.”

All through the political portion of our discussion, Reza had maintained an almost uncanny coolness. When we quit talking about the crisis, I began to ask Reza about some of the items in his room. He showed me a Persian magazine. He played a Persian record for me. About this time, several other people who lived on his hall came into Reza’s room. I introduced myself to them. All of us seemed to get along fine with Reza. Reza showed us all his high school diploma. It was from a high school in El Paso.

“We used to play you all in basketball,” I said. 

“I bet we beat you!” he replied. He was right.

He showed us a letter from his sister. None of us could read it, since it was written in Persian.

“That stuff looks like ‘henscratch’ to me,” said one of the guys. Somebody else laughed and said, “When are you going to teach me how to write the rest of my name in Persian, Reza?”

“When you learn the first part of it,” Reza replied. As he put his sister’s card back in its envelope, he sighed. “I miss my family,” he said. “I can’t even call them anymore.”

“What?” I asked, finding it hard to believe that Reza could not even call home. He explained that the operators were not letting any Iranian students call Iran. I could hardly believe it. “Will you let me try to call?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said, laughing hopelessly. He gave me the international area code, the phone number and his billing code number.

I picked up the phone. “Close the door, please,” I said to one of the guys. Some of them laughed at me, saying, “You’ll never get through. We’ve seen them cut him off too many times.”

I got an outside line and dialed the operator. 

“Operator 219,” she began. 

“I’d like to place a call to Tehran, Iran,” I said, trying to sound as official as I could.”

“Is it an emergency?” the operator asked. I thought for a moment and then said, “Yes, more or less.” 

“What number are you speaking from?” 

“817-755-9576.” I said.

“What number in Tehran do you want?” She asked suspiciously. 

“Area Code 21, Number 664733,” I reported, as officially and authoritatively as possible.

“How do you wish to bill the call?” She seemed to be less suspicious now. 

“Bill it to my number, 063-0744- 6859.” I said. 

“Thank you,” she replied.

I held the line for about a minute. The room was silent. I had six sets of eyes focused on me. I kept holding the line. I was hearing quite a few clicks and noises in the receiver. After what seemed like an eternity, I got a ring. I got two more rings. Finally, someone answered.

“Aaah-lo.” 

“Hang on!” I screamed.

I jammed the phone on Reza’s ear. I guess I was afraid whoever was on the other end was going to hang up.

Reza began to talk. It sounded more like pure blabbering to the rest of us. While he talked excitedly, the rest of us went crazy. We were all suddenly having a great time. It was as if we had just beaten the system. We had called Tehran, Iran. As far as I was concerned, the call was an emergency call. It was an emergency for Reza anyway.

After a minute or two of celebrating our success, I tried to get everybody to get a little quieter. I figured if Reza were talking to someone on the other side of the world, he might appreciate some quiet. We all quit talking and began to listen to Reza. We could not understand what he was saying, but we could tell by the tone of his voice that he was thrilled. About that time, a phone down the hall rang and a couple of guys left to go answer it. We could hear them telling everyone else, “Reza got through! Reza got through!”

As I watched Reza talk, I noticed a small tear form and roll down his right cheek. Then I realized what Reza really thought about the situation in Iran. He was scared. He was justifiably scared. After a very short visit with his family, Reza hung up. He was still crying, but nobody in the room thought anything less of him.

“Thank you,” he said to me. He shook my hand and then hugged me. “Thank you,” he said again. 

“Anytime,” I said, for lack of having anything better to say. 

“I apologize for getting emotional,” Reza said. He didn’t need to apologize to us.

Reza had a honeydew melon on his desk. He offered to cut it, declaring that we should have a celebration. He sliced it, and we ate it. It tasted great. It was much better than supper had been. When we left, all of us were in a good mood. Reza was still in the clouds over the phone call. He thanked me several more times before I left. 

I left Reza’s room with mixed feelings. I was very glad that I had been able to help him. That one simple phone call seemed to be more productive to me than anything else I had done that day. It gave me a sense of accomplishment.

I felt good, but I also felt almost criminally lucky. The time I spent with Reza had made the gripes and complaints I had had earlier in the evening seem like grains of sand on a gigantic beach. I had not been home all semester, but Reza probably had not seen his family in several years. I felt grateful and fortunate that the biggest “problems” in my life were not really problems at all. I had been complaining about studying, reading, going to class, and taking tests.

After talking to Reza, I realized that I was lucky to be in such a position. I realized that I should have been grateful for the freedom to read books, for the chance to go to class, and for the opportunity to study whatever I wanted to study. Suddenly, I was not bothered by the fact that I hadn’t made all A’s on my tests during the semester. I wasn’t upset that I had not been able to get a date with the cutest girl on campus. I wasn’t mad that I had several hundred pages of reading to do before the holidays.

I was no longer concerned with the fact that I had been forced to eat pancakes for supper. In fact, I was glad the pancakes had been there to eat.

I went to bed that night looking forward to the next day. I knew the next day would bring more work, more studying and more reading, but I went to bed happy anyway. I realized that I was often too critical. I saw that I sometimes made things seem to be worse than they actually were. The events of the day had given me a new insight into my values and my attitudes. Thanksgiving had come early for me that year.