Wild Turkey

"Wild Turkey" can lead to some spirited conversation. You can begin the conversation with your ABC's or at least at the store with the same name. But I'm not talking about "brown water" that comes in a bottle. I more or less have in mind the wild turkeys I've seen lately out and about. They are the ones who you will not see on our tables at Thanksgiving. They know nothing of the holiday and would be in mourning for their tame relatives if they got wind of such a thing.

For me Thanksgiving makes me pause and remember. Somehow every thanksgiving I fall down a rabbit hole and pass Alice and the Mad Hatter as I turn left down a winding pathway of memories.

I remember going to Betsy's Lutheran church the night before Thanksgiving and singing, "Let All Things Now Living." I loved that song for some reason. It was not in the Methodist hymnal so when I "grew up" I would steal it and print the words so my congregation could sing it. It is now in the Methodist Hymnal supplement for which I am of course "thankful."

The next day we would all cram ourselves into probably the smallest house of all the extending family dwellings. Reason was not the operative norm. This is where "the family" gathered and that was it. Maw Maw Lee's house was in the country next to the Christmas tree farm where we always hiked after lunch in the hopeless effort to "walk off" what we had just consumed.

And of course gluttony was the sin of the day. I can still taste some of the casseroles and the desserts. There was one uncle who would always disappear for a while and come back from his car a little happier than when he went out. He evidently found another kind of "wild turkey" to help him get through the holiday season.

I can't find those casseroles anymore. The house belongs to someone else. A good number of the people I remember are gone to the place not made with hands eternal in the heavens. We are trying to create new traditions but you can't go back home again....at least in some ways...I suppose we are not supposed to.

Our youngest child was born on one of those Thanksgiving mornings. She messed everything up that day. I never got a taste of one of those casseroles. At 11:17 we had a 10lb 2oz turkey named Amanda. I've always kidded her about that. She now laughs. She did not use to.

On another Thanksgiving evening my mother did her usual second feast for us in the evening. We had a grand old time. She read an essay written by our oldest daughter who was then a "I'm not paying attention to most anyone but me...and no longer want to go to grannies house cause my friends are everything...type of teenager." The essay was about "the person who influenced me the most in life." The words were about my mother. They told of "Grannie breakfasts" and times of singing "Fly Little Blue Bird." The message was of a woman who made that little girl feel like a queen and who saved pantie hose "eggs" to put toys in for her even when my mother did not need any more pantie hose."

My mother cried...said, "I thought you had forgotten"...hugged that not so distant adolescent...and then later that night while reading a book simply bowed her head and died. When I got the phone call from my father saying that, "She was gone," I looked over at Betsy and said, "Well I'm thankful that at least we had a going away party without knowing we were having it." She was only 67. I had other questions for her. I think of her often, especially on Thanksgiving.

So Thanksgiving is "loaded" with memories. I'm thankful for most of them. What about you? Close your eyes this Thanksgiving and smile. Pull out from your flock of wild turkeys a special memory then turn toward the present and create one for the future.

Blessings
jody