Dolores' cousin, Marion, and her husband, Harry treated us on Thanksgiving to a full turkey feast at the Craignair Inn* in Clark Island, a tiny seacoast town that includes the island of Clark Island. (The inn has a great view of some ocean, as it on the shore of that ocean.)

Thanks, Marion and Harry, for the first of what will become for us an annual Thanksgiving tradition.

It was the best Thanksgiving either of us remember in our 18 years together. Not only was the turkey done just right, but the stuffing featured shitake mushrooms and some other great stuffing stuff. The feed was more than any of the six of us could eat.

We all brought home leftovers.

In my typical non-cynical mode, I have chuckled at the Thanksgiving tradition handed down to us by those who indulge in the stuff of myth and legend, not by the actual Pilgrims. Much, if not most, of the first Thanksgiving did not actually occur, according to what I've read while in my non-cynical mode. A recent Emmet Meara Bangor Daily News column debunked most of those myths, using as a source whose name I forget but who was a reliable historian. A recent Bangor Daily News editorial related those myths and legends as factual, quoting again I forget who, who "conjectured" the truth of these myths and legends, according to the editorial.

I think we've been missing the Thanksgiving boat. Not the Mayflower but the fact that Thanksgiving is the Great American Holiday. All of us Americans for the past century and longer have been creating the actual Thanksgiving history.

That history happens year after year in our homes, restaurants, and the Craignair Inn, the gathering of families together to overeat, argue, sleep through football games, and nibble on leftovers for days after the big day.

I read in the Bangor Daily News that some experts somewhere predicted that 252,000,000 Americans would sit down this Thanksgiving to a Great American Holiday feast. The article didn't mention the unbelievable amount of leftovers this would create.

A passenger unfortunate enough to ride my bus to work commented, when I told him about our plans to dine at the Craignair Inn with family, "But leftovers are the best part of Thanksgiving."

We ate leftovers from the inn last night.

This same passenger asked me where the inn is located.

"Way down past someplace I've never been," I replied.

He kept asking until I finally said, "Well below Ellsworth."

Since we both live in the woods on the outskirts of this city -- has a city council rather than selectmen, he replied that he knew where south of Ellsworth would be -- approximately.

It's easy to find, sort of, if you go to Map 8 of the DeLorme The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer, you'll find Clark Island near the end of Clark Island Road near St. George, wherever that is.

Probably the best part of our Thanksgiving dinner out was the chance to chit chat with our relatives and meet old friends of theirs. The wife part of the couple we met, Gloria, earned my respect with one sentence she spoke to me.

Gloria is German, and I told her my late father was German. I also told her that when I was a kid back in the Pennsylvania dark ages, he had said a sentence in German for me. He then said, "Never say this sentence out loud."

I told Gloria this true tale, and she responded by asking, is this the sentence. She then said the exact same sentence in German my father had said those hundreds of years ago -- so it seems -- and then said it again in English.

And I thought that was a long-tucked-away father-and-son secret.

No, I won't write that sentence. My father said never say it out loud, but I'm sure he also meant never write it in a column.

On the day after Thanksgiving, while I was driving my bus to Bangor's Black Friday and back, I thought Dolores and I ought to make Thanksgiving at the Craignair Inn an annual tradition. I later learned that Dolores, at home watching the kitties get all confused by the flock of wild non-Thanksgiving-feast turkeys roaming our dooryard, thought we ought to make Thanksgiving at the Craignair Inn an annual tradition.

That evening we agreed, and so a tradition was born.

We emailed our relatives, thanking them for the introduction to the inn and sharing the news that they had helped form a new Thanksgiving tradition.

I now believe firmly that Thanksgiving leftovers involve not only the turkey and other goodies we save from our meal at home or bring home from the restaurant and Craignair Inn, but memories.

After all, it's those leftovers, the memories, that are making me write this column.

Different folks keep their own version of Thanksgiving leftovers on hand. A passenger yesterday on her way to Black Friday told me about her leftovers. She had been living in a tiny apartment in Bar Harbor and had promised her daughter in Massachusetts -- or some other from-away place, since I can't actually remember whether or not it was Massachusetts -- that for Thanksgiving this year she would be in a different apartment.

She moved into a new apartment the day before Thanksgiving. From her apartment's picture window, she can watch the deer and the turkeys play at the edge of the woods. (Not deer and antelope in Maine, but deer and turkeys and other wild critters.)

The woman was quite excited that her daughter from away would have Thanksgiving with her in her new apartment. In the midst of her exciting expectancy, the phone rang. It was her daughter, telling her that she had to work on Black Friday so would be unable to come to Maine for Thanksgiving.

"But you have to come," insisted the very upset mother. "I even have the new apartment for our celebration."

"I'm sorry," said the daughter, "I just can't. But I'll be there for Christmas for sure."

Ten minutes later the mother was deep into housework to try to cope with her upset, when the doorbell rang.

She opened the door to find her daughter and a friend.

"Happy Thanksgiving," the two shouted to the unbelieving mother.

And Happy Thanksgiving leftovers to you who read this.

White wooden New England churches with their pointed steeples, such as this one in Rumford Point, are part of the historic American tradition that includes Thanksgiving. Milt Gross photo.

* I copied the following description from a web site I found when I typed "Craignair Inn" into the Google slot, omitting one paragraph because it seemed like an advertisement: Set on a granite ledge rising from the sea and surrounded by flower gardens, Craignair was built in 1928 to house workers from the nearby quarries. Little has changed here since the turn of the century, and you can still feel the mood of a once lively and active working town. The Union Hall still stands, as well as the old General Store and Post Office. The Chapel, where the stonecutters and their families once worshipped, is now an annex to the Inn. Evidence of the Quarry-Workers' time is also portrayed in the beautiful granite causeway that stretches across the water to Clark Island, where a great Quarry was once the center of this picturesque village. Clark Island granite was used in the construction of the Central Park bridges and gate houses, and in the Brooklyn Battery tunnel, both in New York City, and the Library of Congress in Washington, just to name a few.

The Boarding House was converted to an Inn in 1947 by Alice and David Renegar. They sold it in the 70's to the Buck's. After five years, the Bucks sold it to the Smiths, and in 1998 Neva--the Original Innkeeper's Daughter--and her husband Steve purchased the Inn. Now Joanne and Michael O'Shea are honored to be your new hosts, starting in the spring of 2010.The Downstairs has a cheerful Parlor and Library, with a sunny Dining Room that has unmatched views of the ocean and Clark Island. Upstairs there are 13 rooms, 6 with private baths and 7 with shared. The Vestry Annex has 8 rooms, all with private bath and air conditioning.

Craignair Inn is attractive to visitors who seek peace, privacy, tranquility, and natural beauty. It is a magical place, and is ideal for writers, naturalists, artists, or those who seek a change of pace.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.

Milton M. Gross Copyright 2011