What I Learned From A Turkey

It’s almost Dooms Day for turkey-kind, and if I were Martha Stewart, I’d tell you how to set a lovely table with napkins rings made from potatoes, pre-mashed of course. But, as you well know, I’m not Martha Stewart.

The best Thanksgiving I remember is the one that started with a phone call from David telling us he couldn’t make it home. 

So Roger, Margaret, Shayna, Anny, and I hustled around, got pies, potatoes, butter beans, turkey, and went to Penn State. Let me tell you that Penn State looks weird on Thanksgiving morning with nobody walking on Beaver Ave. Nevertheless, the Starbucks is open. 

David lived in a duplex, with guys who worked for Navigators (plus David who was still a student) on one side, and girls who worked for Navigators on the other side. Don’t know about Navs? Look it up, they're an amazing bunch of people. 

There was one girl who didn’t go home, Christine from out west somewhere, and David, who had to work bright and early on Black Friday. We cooked the turkey and set the table at her house, and made the rest of the stuff at David’s. With him helping as cook.

Just before we put dinner on, we rushed back and forth from one back door, across the porch and into the other back door carrying hot food to the table. We had to improvise parts of the meal and it was delicious. I think it was so fun because it was a challenge, and the kids were glad to have family. 

Another Thanksgiving we had on Black Friday, Kathy Kroh cooked it, because Thanksgiving Day my mother was in the hospital. Last year we made the turkey and went to Rachel’s and Anny’s where Margaret, Rachel, and Anny proved themselves good cooks. 

But all those Thanksgiving when Louise made miracles in her kitchen and Irv carved the turkey were good ones too. Or when we were in Florida eating turkey with them on the sun porch that was tropical Thanksgiving fun.  

Or when I was a kid and went to Gillespie’s or Uncle Orin’s or they came to us? Weren’t they the best ever? 

I guess every year with people you love is the best Thanksgiving, right?