Parades, Free Meals, Comic Strips : Festivities, Sharing Mark Thanksgiving

Millions of Americans gathered Thursday to feed the nation’s needy or count their blessings over Thanksgiving dinners, and 175 cartoonists chose the day of plenty to mix humor with grim reminders of famine in their comic strips.

Churches, charities, restaurant owners and the good-spirited spent their holiday feeding the homeless and hungry. About 10,000 flood victims in West Virginia were fed by volunteers, “Daddy� Bruce Randolph whipped up a barbecue for 100,000 in Denver, and 40 needy families in El Paso feasted on turkey delivered by retired mailman Raul Natividad and his brother, Joe.

“If you don’t have any place to go or you can afford only a burger and fries for a Thanksgiving dinner, then come on down,� was the call of Houston businessman J. David Moeller, who rounded up 100 turkeys to throw a free dinner in front of City Hall.

In New York, clowns and stars sloshed down rainy Broadway for the 59th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, shrugging off the rain for the enjoyment of millions of children.

‘Could Be Worse’

“It’s cold. It’s raining. But at least it’s Thanksgiving,� said Bill Classen, one of the Macy’s employees who inflated the parade’s trademark helium-filled balloons. “It could be worse.�

Kermit the Frog sprang a few leaks, forcing workers to lift his dragging green feet from the pavement. And 72-foot-tall Betty Boop, this year’s new arrival, peeped into an apartment and tipped precariously toward a traffic island as 40 workers struggled to keep her under control.

Thousands of New York’s homeless flocked to 19 shelters for city-sponsored dinners. Actresses Susan Sarandon and Brooke Adams, joined by Judy Belushi, widow of comedian John Belushi, served dinner to the residents of another welfare hotel.

Some of the homeless in Washington, D.C., spotlighted in recent weeks by “Doonesbury� cartoonist Garry Trudeau gathered in a park across from the White House for turkey and all the trimmings, provided by shelters and churches.

“On Thanksgiving Day, 90 million comics readers won’t be able to avoid a troubling but hopeful message: that world hunger persists but there’s something we can do about it,� said “Doonesbury� artist Trudeau in a statement.

Pilgrim Procession

At Plymouth, Mass., residents re-enacted a Pilgrim procession begun 60 years ago to commemorate the three-day harvest celebration in 1621 that included white settlers and Native Americans. For some Indians, the day was tinged with irony.

“The bounty of the country has not come to the Indian people,� said Leonard Brugier of Vermillion, S.D. Said Steve Emery, a University of South Dakota student who 10 years ago demonstrated with other Indians at Plymouth Rock, “I look at the mere fact that we still survive today as a reason to be thankful.�

Some immigrants were especially anxious to help the needy. In the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan, Greek immigrant Chris Ritzakis was expecting 1,500 people to take advantage of his Thanksgiving giveaway.

As Angelenos celebrated Thanksgiving, the traditional sharing was evident. (Part II, Page 1.)