OF FOOD AND FOOTBALL AND COUNTING BLESSINGS

The day may have begun with prayer or a parade. There was football for some and, for others, a frenzy of mashing, whipping, baking and even burning. But what turned yesterday into the most American of holidays was more than the warmth of a sunlit afternoon or the aroma of a home-cooked meal.

From Mount Pleasant to Cheverly, from the corner drugstore in Chevy Chase to the side streets of Capitol Hill, there was a sense that something good had come of life. Something that caused an elderly woman to bow her head in wonder of 75 years and 24 grandchildren. Something that teased a man to grab a football and run 10 yards for a score. Something that made a mother and child stand in the chilly shadow of the Capitol and feed the hungry.

It was a day of thanksgiving.

Walter H. Horn adjusted the lectern and grabbed his tape recorder. This was his 27th Thanksgiving Day service in the auditorium at Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly and the white-haired lay preacher was ready to deliver the word of God.

But he wondered how many would come to hear it.

Many patients went home the day before the holiday to be with families and friends. "I'm just going to give my everyday words about Christian living -- an overall Thanksgiving Day message -- but it is a thrill," the 70-year-old preacher said.

The service was to start at 10 a.m. By 10:10, with two people in the audience, Horn shrugged his shoulders and hit the button on the tape recorder. A thin, tinny "Now Thank We All Our God" played. It meant something to Horn's secretary, a great-grandmother in volunteer pink, seated in a blue seat.

"I just turned 75 and felt I should come to thank the Lord," said Helen Fox, a widow for 12 years who makes her home in Upper Marlboro. "Even though I'm Catholic and he's a Protestant," she said matter-of-factly, nodding toward Horn.

For a moment, Fox talked about all she had to be thankful for. Her family. Her 24 grandchildren. Her 12 great-grandchildren. The big dinner -- she would be contributing her favorite honey ham -- that her eldest grandson had planned for 50 people. The opportunity to worship with a friend.

"He's so faithful," she said, smiling at Horn as he began his sermon. "He feels like he's doing good in the world," she whispered.

"Everything we have and we are we owe to God," he said. "He created us, launched us in this world, provides for us and loves us." Horn closed his eyes tight to recite parts of the 23rd Psalm. He shook when he spoke of the glory of God. And then he turned to the tiny audience and asked for a blessing.

"The Bible says, 'Where two or more are gathered, so am I,' " Horn said. "Truly, God is with us."

"Amen," Fox said.

For 19 years, televised football games on Thanksgiving Day have meant little or nothing in the community of Mount Pleasant. Here the talk is about the Dust Bowl -- the annual contest in which men under 20 pound the turf against those over 20 who can still run. Some of the nearly 200 watching the game yesterday at Lincoln Elementary said perhaps the game would be more aptly named the Turkey Bowl.

"This is the game that we talk about all year," said Daniel Provoid, a 25-year-old grocery store clerk suited up in a red-and-white jersey and taking deep breaths from his time on the field. "This is the time when, if you've got some frustrations to take out on your buddies, you can do it.

"When it's all over, we wish them a happy Thanksgiving and hope they'll still be able to eat," he said with a wink.

The contest began as an informal pickup game, held sporadically in the field behind the Woodner apartments off 16th Street NW. Then families who lived for years in the neighborhood decided to formalize the event.

Businesses along Mount Pleasant Street donated money for uniforms. Liquor stores offered a free keg for spectators. What was once a game became a holiday tradition that sparked good-natured rivalries. To some, it is a symbol of the strength of the community.

"It brings the neighborhood together," said Kenneth Marshall, an offensive coach for the old-timers who played on the other side of the field years ago. "Old friends come by that haven't been here in a while. Whole families spend the day."

The game yesterday seemed destined to end as most had over the past few years: The young would prevail. It's not quite the tradition that Nellie Leonard, who has watched nearly every game over the past two decades, wants started.

"It's very enjoyable to watch the young ones -- but I'm rooting for the old men. They haven't won in three or four years," said Leonard, who brought her 9-year-old daughter to the game. She paused and then shook her head over a play.

"You know, I wish they'd let women play. The way they play," she rolled her eyes at the older team, "they could use us."

Making breakfast on Thanksgiving morning seemed such a waste to Mitch Fairley and his friend C.G. In only a few hours, there would be football games to watch and a dinner to prepare. Why work in the kitchen more than they had to?

He found out about 11 a.m. after driving around Northeast Washington for more than 1 1/2 hours yesterday. No one else wanted to be in the kitchen either. No one at Wendy's, no one at McDonald's, no one at the handful of restaurants that the couple had driven to that morning.

"I'm hungry," C.G. said. "And I don't have food in the refrigerator." Fairley, a research technician at the Library of Congress, shook his head under the McDonald's sign at New York Avenue and First Street NE. After all, this IS the place that advertises "55 Billion Served."

But not on Thanksgiving.

Higgers Drug Store on Connecticut Avenue opened at 8 a.m. The lines started drifting back toward the candy counter by 1 p.m. Francine Towns, who had been cooking since the morning, found herself waiting by the wine bottles in the front of the store.

"I mainly came to get cigarettes, but now I've decided to get wine." She picked up a bottle of Sutter Home and then a bottle of Inglenook. Both white and both would go with turkey, she mused. With all the food, she reasoned, the cheaper Inglenook would do.

"We'll be having turkey, country ham, chocolate cake, oyster dressing, string beans and mashed potatoes." She grinned. "What I mean is, we're pigging out."

Three months ago, George Mizo fasted 47 days to protest U.S. involvement in Central America. Yesterday the Vietnam veteran again was not eating. Standing in Lafayette Park across from the White House, waiting with others who had pledged a daylong fast, he wondered how people could stop what he considers a national disgrace.

Mizo began his fast after the Senate in August approved sending $100 million to Nicaraguan contras. He ended it Oct. 17. He was solemn when he spoke about it yesterday. Then his face brightened when he discussed the recent revelations that profits from U.S. arms that had been sold to Iran had been given to the contras in Nicaragua.

What an outrage, he said quietly. That the news outraged so many has raised the hopes of those who have been steadfastly against Reagan's foreign policy.

"What's happening in the White House basement has started the walls crumbling . . . . Yes, that the truth has come out is reason enough for Thanksgiving."

A hundred cooks had roasted a hundred turkeys for the feast. By 3 p.m. there would be dozens of platters of stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. It was enough to feed a crowd of 1,000.

At least that many homeless and hungry came to dinner at the East Front of the Capitol yesterday, guests of the Community for Creative Non-Violence.

"We are here to convince Congress that we have an emergency in our country about the homeless," said organizer Mitch Snyder, adding that he and his workers plan to camp out on the Capitol grounds until more federal aid is given to homeless programs throughout the United States.

With them will be a metal statue of a homeless family huddled on a grate.

"Congress came up with $1.7 billion within a matter of weeks to deal with the drug problem. What we want them to do is show the same concern for the homeless . . . our efforts will begin after this meal," he said.

As Snyder spoke to dozens of reporters about his cause -- his hopes for passage of a House bill that would earmark $350 million for the homeless -- hundreds stood in the chill of the late afternoon, to feed and to be fed.

Jimmy Cox had never spent a Thanksgiving Day like this. The 12-year-old from Fairfax County, spurred on by friends, had gotten up early to help with the food preparations. Later, he toured city shelters to see what "it meant to be homeless." And by 4 p.m., he was handing out bottles of soda pop to a seemingly unending line of those in need.

"I just wanted to work to serve the Lord today," Cox said. To do that, wasn't he missing his own Thanksgiving dinner? "Yeah, but my parents said it was OK . . . . This is a way to really praise God."

Karen and Steven Schneedbaum brought their two daughters, 9 and 6 years old, to help with the meal. But by late afternoon, there were more volunteers than there was work for them to do, and the Schneedbaums had been relegated to the sidelines.

"We wanted to do something different for this Thanksgiving and something that was a little more socially conscious," said Karen Schneedbaum, an architectural photographer.

"We wanted the children to know that a lot of people can't do what we accept as routine," her husband, a lawyer, added. "We talked to them about how easy it is to ignore people you see every day."

A few steps away from the Schneedbaums were more than a dozen people, sprawled on the Capitol grounds, carefully balancing paper plates on their laps. One of those people, a man named Jerry, sat with his back to the U.S. Supreme Court Building and wondered if he would ever be able to go home again.

"I've been doing so bad that I couldn't go anywhere else," said the 38-year-old former mail clerk who didn't want his last name revealed in fear of angering relatives.

He nodded toward the crowd. "Today, this, this is my family."

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.