Southland Thanksgivings Served Up in Many Styles

More than 3,000 miles from Plymouth Rock and 372 years after the first Thanksgiving, Southland residents celebrated the traditional holiday Thursday in a cornucopia of ways--from free meals served on Los Angeles’ Skid Row to a Hollywood dinner for struggling entertainers.

In Seal Beach, two Native American families broke bread with the descendants of a couple who came to America on the Mayflower.

“We can’t go back (in time), but let’s mend some of the wounds,” said Lynda Schultz, 55, who donned a rented Pilgrim costume to preside over the “healing celebration” designed to symbolically reunite Native Americans and Europeans at Seal Beach’s Leisure World retirement community.

At the Union Rescue Mission in Downtown Los Angeles, cooks worked for a week to prepare 125 turkeys, 1,000 pounds of stuffing, 400 pounds of candied yams and vegetables and more than 270 pumpkin pies for about 3,000 guests, most of them homeless.

Several thousand additional free meals were being served to needy men, women and children at the nearby Fred Jordan Mission and Midnight Mission, directors said.

And in fire-ravaged Laguna Beach, about 225 friends and relatives of those who lost homes in exclusive Emerald Bay gathered under a tent for a festive meal, thankful for their survival during that city’s worst catastrophe.

“This will be as good or better a Thanksgiving (than) we’ve ever had,” said Emerald Bay resident Erik Hansen, whose home was among 366 destroyed Oct. 27 in the Laguna Beach blaze.

In West Hollywood, a 14-year tradition continued as the Laugh Factory served up free dinners to down-and-out comics, thespians and others in the entertainment world, said club proprietor Jamie Masada.

Turkey and all the trimmings, coupled with servings of stage comedy, were being dished out at continuous seatings that began in the early afternoon, Masada said.

Hundreds of volunteers helped serve charity dinners in South El Monte, where owner Gus Angelopoulos of Jim’s Burgers 27 planned to feed 2,500 people; in Santa Monica, where homeless parents and children lined up for meals at the Civic Center, and in Santa Ana, where nearly 2,000 people feasted in a mini-mall parking lot.