A Typical Thanksgiving Day
For Mack Braziel and family 50 years ago
We would plan and look forward to Thanksgiving Day for a week or two.
On Thanksgiving Day, we got up early and headed out to some of our families house. Sometimes we went to our parents, sometimes to Viola’s sisters or to the home of Viola and myself.
We would have the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey, dressing, giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and ham.
Oh Yes! The turkey was usually won by some of the boys in a trap shoot.
The women did practically all of the work. Us boys would go quail hunting in the morning and come back at dinnertime. Then we would go back hunting in the afternoon.
Thank the Lord we were able to do these things.
My hopes are that young people of this day are still celebrating Thanksgiving. I hope they will never lose sight of their people of long ago, who worked real hard and helped pioneer this country.
Contributed by: Mack Braziel
Perkins, Oklahoma
THANKSGIVING FORECAST
Turkeys will thaw in the morning, then warm in the oven to an afternoon, high near 190F. The kitchen will turn hot and humid, and if you bother the cook, be ready for a severe squall or cold shoulder.
During the late afternoon and evening, the cold front of a knife will slice through the turkey, causing an accumulation of one to two inches on plates. Mashed potatoes will drift across one side while cranberry sauce creates slippery spots on the other. Please pass the gravy. A weight watch and indigestion warning have been issued for the entire area, with increased stuffiness around the beltway. During the evening, the turkey will diminish and taper off to leftovers, dropping to a low of 34F in the refrigerator.
Looking ahead to Friday and Saturday, high pressure to eat sandwiches will be established. Flurries of leftovers can be expected both days with a 50 percent chance of scattered soup late in the day. We expect a warming trend where soup develops. By early next week, eating pressure will be low as the only wish left will be the bone.
THE TURKEY SHOT OUT OF THE OVEN
by Jack Prelutsky
The turkey shot out of the oven
and rocketed into the air,
it knocked every plate off the table
and partly demolished a chair.
It ricocheted into a corner
and burst with a deafening boom,
then splattered all over the kitchen,
completely obscuring the room.
It stuck to the walls and the windows,
it totally coated the floor,
there was turkey attached to the ceiling,
where there’d never been turkey before.
It blanketed every appliance.
It smeared every saucer and bowl.
There wasn’t a way I could stop it.
That turkey was out of control.
I scraped and I scrubbed with displeasure
and thought with chagrin as I mopped,
that I’d never again stuff a turkey
with popcorn that hadn’t been popped.
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
Dale Carnegie
A three-year-old child is a being who gets almost as much fun out of a
$300 set of swings as it does out of finding a small green caterpillar.
Bill Vaughan
Published in U S Legacies Magazine in November 2003
- Log in to post comments