West Wing Thanksgiving

Posted by Tommie Wells

Sometimes there are just great television programs that you never saw when they were originally broadcast. West Wing was one such show that I remember hearing wonderful things about but I never seemed to watch it. I then found it being broadcast in syndication on my TVbyDirect and fell in love. This show was on for seven seasons and each and every show was entertaining and completely engrossing. I love all of the characters but the Thanksgiving holiday approaching always makes me think of an episode of the show that centered on the relationship between President Bartlet and his aide Charley.

If you are not familiar with The West Wing it is about the administration of President Josiah Bartlet. Among his many staff is an aide named Charley. His job is to see to all of the President's needs whether that be waking him, doing his shopping or making sure he takes his medicine. In the show President Bartlet is a Nobel prize winning economist, has a doctorate and loves to speak on and on about the minutiae of and manner of subjects that would bore most of his listeners. The President is descended from an original signer of the Declaration of Independence from his home state of New Hampshire. Charley on the other hand is a young black man who cares for his police office mother is killed in the line of duty.

Somehow they develop a particularly close relationship. In the Thanksgiving episode the President send Charley to buy him a carving knife. Each time Charley returns with a knife it is sent back as it never meeting the Presidents extraordinary demands. President Bartlet finally confides to Charley that the knife is special as it is going to replace a family heirloom which he is going to give to someone special. The knife was made by Paul Revere and has been handed down through the generation in his family. When we learn that the President is giving Charley the knife it is a truly touching moment.