Hotel La Palma : Happy Endings: A group of day laborers has reason to celebrate Thanksgiving when a good Samaritan arrives with a holiday meal.

Thanksgiving Day began inauspiciously for the men of “Hotel La Palma,” the day laborer camp under a palm tree on the concrete bed of the Los Angeles River in Canoga Park. But in the end they got their turkey dinner.

By 7 a.m., the 40 to 50 Mexican men who live at La Palma had rolled out of their one tent and the nylon covers that shelter many of them at night and were on nearby street corners, looking for work.

As they had expected, hardly anyone wanted day laborers on a holiday. By 10 a.m., about a dozen had made their way back to the camp and prepared to pick up a turkey they thought was waiting for them at El Centro de Guadalupe church on Hart Street a few blocks away.

Five of them--the man nicknamed “Camel” and Lino Flores and three others--volunteered for the bird hunt.

The night before, Rodrigo Urquiza had been in charge of fetching dinner. Those who had worked that day chipped in $2 or $3 each. Anastasio had been working for three straight weeks at a construction site, so he was gently embarrassed into contributing $5. The other half of the commune was broke, but they would not go hungry. Anastasio returned with a chicken, potatoes, onions, tortillas, cilantro, tomatoes and lemons.

The resulting tacos were delicious.

On Thursday, however, the turkey seemed to be on everbody’s mind.

“You know,” confided Hernan, one of several campers who did not want their full names revealed, “back home we’re not really into turkey. They really don’t have much taste, but when they want to give us something, that’s great, bring it over.”

Flores and the rest came back from the church empty-handed. All the turkeys had been given away Saturday.

“We had to save the food baskets for needy families,” explained Gabriel Hernandez, who runs the church’s holiday food distribution program. “For single men, we’re serving food right here”.

The campers reasoned they had misunderstood the invitation, given them by two police officers who dropped by La Palma the day before. They sat resignedly at a table and picked at Thanksgiving food without enthusiasm. “It’s not the same” without the others, mourned “Camel,” the soft-spoken construction worker who many recognize as the commune’s leader. His long nose, strong jaw and cool demeanor earned him the nickname.

“We’re like a family, and we like to hang out. We’re in peace by the river and we don’t bother anybody.”

Fermin Correa picked two girls’ dresses and a baby’s overalls from the pile of free clothing outside the church dinning room. “For my relatives in Zacatecas,” he said as he thanked Hernandez.

Before leaving for home, they greeted Paul Bernal and John Walker, the two police officers who had mentioned the church’s free turkey the day before.

“For the most part these are hard-working men,” said Bernal, as he waved goodby. “They’ve even helped us solve a couple of crimes.”

Bernal and Walker were assigned last month to the “Centro Amistad” a city- and county-sponsored community center aimed at improving relations with the Latino community, Bernal said. Through the center, they hope to find the campers a better home.

“We’ve received some complaints and they will have to leave the riverbed, but we won’t do anything until we find them a place to live,” Bernal said.

Back in La Palma, there were more than 20 men waiting for dinner. Camel and the others told them about the turkey mix-up and Bernal’s search for a roof for them to live under.

Some liked the idea, but many others did not. At La Palma they sleep on wooden pallets to avoid getting wet when the river rises. When it rains, said young Lorenzo Magallanes, “We don’t have to take a bath.”

When it’s cold, they go to the Salvation Army shelter in Canoga Park. When police drop in, they say hello. When the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service stops by, they say, about half of them--the ones without green cards--run.

“We want to stay together,” said Miguel Alvarez, 45, as they sat in circles on upended paint buckets. “It would be nice to have a place, and we could even pitch in a little for rent as we do with the food. But the apartments would have to be nearby, so we can see each other and be together. Besides, who’s going to rent an apartment to five Mexican men?”

No one seemed too interested in talking about moving.

“So what happened to the turkey?” asked Magallanes in Spanish, the only language spoken at the camp. “Let’s go buy one for the tacos tonight.” Some pitched in $2, others $3.

Juan passed the hat around a group that was singing ranchera songs to the music of an old guitar, collecting cash for beer.

Magallanes came back with a bag of food, but no turkey. “The bird cost $29 and something and I only had $27 and something, so I brought some beef,” he kept apologizing to anybody who would listen. Alvarez said he preferred red meat anyway. The rest nodded in agreement.

Juan tried to break a 4-by-4 to start a fire. Some brought scavenged aluminum cans and tossed them into plastic bags. “If you don’t find work, you go out looking for cans,” said Camel. “Or firewood. Everybody helps.”

The camp has been in place for at least two years, said Lino Flores. The faces change. During the summer, the camp gets smaller as workers follow the harvest. In December, those who do well return to Mexico for the Christmas fiestas.

They talked about Pancho Villa’s heroics and his encounter with Emiliano Zapata. They talked about their hometowns and their families.

Suddenly someone shouted “here comes the turkey!” and all heads turned toward the river bridge.

Making his way down the Hotel La Palma entrance--a narrow opening by the railroad bridge in the fence enclosing the riverbed--was Richard Osborne from the Valley Vineyard Christian Fellowship. He was carrying a pile of plastic dishes loaded with food that his wife, Joan, had passed to him over the fence.

They recognized him in a second. He’s the guy, they said, who hands out ham sandwiches to the day workers on nearby Vanowen Avenue.

“Buenos dias, “ said Osborne in halting Spanish. He passed around dishes. No one refused. Each got a turkey sandwich and a serving of stuffing.

Alvarez stepped forward. “Thank you, thank you very much. Like you, we are all sons of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Osborne had trouble understanding the greeting, but when he did, a big smile lit his face. He noticed he was three dishes short, so he rushed back to his wife. When he returned, he was smiling again. “Tres mas, “ he said, as he looked for the men without plates.

“Well, how about that,” said Magallanes with a grin as he watched Osborne leave. “We ended up eating our turkey after all. I guess miracles do exist.”

The beef tacos would keep until today.