Thanksgivings were always a big occasion for my family. In the earlier years, our family would load up our Pontiac sedan and leave the Wet Virginia mountains en route to Raleigh to spend the holiday with Mama Ida. In December, she came to our house for Christmas, but for Turkey Day, it was North Carolina. Mama Ida always had a huge spread with a big bird and all the sides, and I remember enjoying the turkey sandwiches the next day perhaps more than the turkey bird itself on the big day.
I also remember football. Mama Ida had a black and white TV, and I watched football all day long. It was always the Packers vs the Lions followed by the Cardinals and Giants. Always. Since it was black and white TV, one of the teams would wear black or dark pants and the other white pants so you could tell the teams apart. On rainy days they all had muddy, dark plants and you had to rely on the announcer to describe who was doing what to whom.
As the children in our family grew older, and as my dad and I began our love affair with quail hunting, we moved the Thanksgiving celebrations to Lewisburg, and my Carolina relatives came to visit us. We always had our Thanksgiving meal for dinner, after our bird hunts. One memory in particular stands out. Eating collards. Daddy had a large garden and always grew collards. We waited until after the first frost to pick them, when they were at their sweetest. Mam Ida would cook them in a big pot, simmering on the stove with a slice of fat back for the entire day. They cooked down to a sweet, dark delicacy and were the star of the Thanksgiving spread. My Uncle Jim piled them high on his plate and went for multiple helpings.
Another old memory is the days following Thanksgiving when we ate leftovers.
Daddy always carved the turkey, and he was a master. He would have the bird shaved down the bone over the following days, but even when the turkey was stripped of all visible meat, we were not finished with Mr. Turkey. At that point, Daddy created Turkey Hash. He cooked the whole carcass in a big pot for hours, adding rice and we then ate that concoction until I didn’t want to see another turkey.
But even the Turkey Hash and all the leftovers were good and have a permanent place in my tall stack of Thanksgiving memories.
