Thanksgivng Memories
~ by Jeff Tryon
I
guess our traditions are just ritual codifications of our own sense memories. When it comes to holidays, our childhood recollections are the touchstone of authentic celebrations. I’ m old, but I’ m not ancient. When I think back on Thanksgivings of my childhood, it is less like a vintage Currier and Ives print and more like a 1960s sitcom. The TV was there then, of course, and it still is.
The first thing I do on Thanksgiving morning is to get the Thanksgiving Day parades on the old boob tube. Usually, I’ m too busy to actually watch it much, but it is part of the traditional background soundtrack for my Thanksgiving morning.
These days, I’ m in the kitchen or dining room, trying to help get the feast ready, but in the Thanksgivings of my childhood, that was the province of the moms, and the kids and adult men were free to amuse themselves as they wished while savory aromas filled the house with the promise of delectable delights.
My family didn’ t eat turkey that often, and if we did it was cold, sliced, and on white bread with mayonnaise. The mouthwatering fragrance of roasting turkey was probably something I only encountered once a year.
We usually spent Thanksgiving with our cousins, and while the adults prepared the feast, the children were sent“ out to play,” to keep us from underfoot in the kitchen, until it was time for the Norman Rockwell moment.
That meant out to play in glorious autumnal Brown County. The late fall weather was crisp and sharp, the skies an ethereal blue. Multicolored fallen leaves crunched underfoot as my brothers and cousins and I shrieked and giggled and ran and wheeled, playing tag and hide-and-seek, and sometimes even throwing a football around or playing“ horse” on some rusty, wobbling old hoop.
It didn’ t really matter, we just had fun. Life was less complicated then.
Finally, it was time. The children were called and we ran in chilled numb, red-nosed, and flushed with play into the small warm house, crowded with relatives and the intoxicating odor of the impending feast.
Everyone found a spot around the table, Dad,“ asked the blessing,” and then the large roasted bird made its grand entrance, pushing onto a table already groaning with holiday victuals. Everybody eats today. My mother was a wonderful cook, although she once confided she learned everything she knew from the backs of boxes and labels on cans(“ When I married, I couldn’ t cook a lick …”). So mother was not reenacting Thanksgivings of her youth so much as trying to recreate that mythical TV“ Betty Crocker” Thanksgiving.
There was turkey, of course, but what I liked best was the chicken and dumplings and cornbread dressing. Also, those little brown and serve rolls. These days, you can get all kinds of fancy rolls and breads for the Thanksgiving table, but I still feel
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56 Our Brown County Nov./ Dec. 2016