Joseph Sabino Mistick: Thanksgiving, more than a day

Art Keppel started Thanksgiving early this year, and it lasted for months.

When the Philadelphia lawyer retired from private practice in March 2020, the pandemic gave him time to reflect on his life, like many of us. A year and a half later, he embarked on the “Art Keppel Thank You Tour,” visiting people and places that had changed his life along the way.

Art headed out this past August, and he just arrived home, keeping his promise to his “patient wife” to be back by Thanksgiving Day.

“That was Karen’s only condition,” he said.

Art always had wanderlust, but it was on hold for a few decades. After college, he joined the Army and was stationed in California. Then came the Peace Corps in Malaysia, four wandering years in Asia and Europe, a kibbutz in Israel, and nursing and law degrees in Delaware — all before settling down to a law practice, marriage and five children.

“As I looked back on all those adventures, I realized that I didn’t do any of this alone, and I wanted to give thanks,” he said. “This was carefully unstructured, and on no day did I want to be rushed.”

So he went where his memories took him, arriving nearly everywhere unannounced. He crisscrossed America on two-lane roads, backtracking when a new memory arose, making new friends while searching for old friends.

Art found an old Army buddy in Kentucky, an officer who led with a gentle soul.

“Over the years, when the stresses of life got to me, his calm approach would calm me,” he said.

At the now-closed Fort Ord in California, the boot camp where Art was stationed, he sat on the ground-hugging limbs of the Old Coast Live Oaks in the nearby woods.

“The limbs were shiny from the young soldiers who must have sat there, too, as they pondered their deployment to Vietnam,” he said. “I cried for them and thanked them.”

He went to Utah looking for a Mormon couple who were Peace Corps friends. They were not to be found, but a local librarian helped locate them in Idaho. They were surprised by his visit because people “have no idea what impression they made on your life.”

He never found an old high school pal who was a high jumper in the Munich Olympics, but the search for him in Wyoming was worth it.

“His life lessons became mine long ago,” he said.

Art visited Mount Rushmore and spent Veterans Day in Ann Arbor, Mich., shedding a few tears in both places, thankful for the blessings of America.

And after unsuccessfully searching for retired judge Francis X. Caiazza in New Castle, Art found him in Pittsburgh. The judge was his first boss in the law, and the Caiazzas welcomed him as family.

From Oregon to Washington to California to South Dakota to Texas to Utah to Idaho to Arizona to Wyoming to Michigan and Pennsylvania, Art dropped in on friends and family to simply say “thank you.”

While Art’s journey may be the longest Thanksgiving ever, it holds a message for us all. Thanksgiving is more than just one day each year. As he says, “This trip was a punctuation mark in my life. I am blessed beyond my worth.”