No place like home for the holidays

I love Thanksgiving

     Most people do.  I have great memories of Thanksgivings past.  Sometimes like Jacob Marley, they can haunt me.
     We were newlyweds.  We went to my brother Dennis's for dinner.  Jackie made pumpkin pie.
The first mental image of this meal was, we ate at a ping pong table set above a pool table.  When we sat down to eat, our chins were almost resting on the table.  We had to reach up to eat, because our arms were considerably below the table.  Somewhere there is a family photo, and we all look like bodyless heads.
     We muddled through dinner and dessert was next.  I think it was Jackie who went to the bathroom when we are all eating pie.  Very quietly eating pie.  With lots of whip cream.  Jackie came back, sat down, took a bite of pie and made a terrible face.  "I forgot the sugar," she yelled.
     You have to give tmy family credit,  they were eating it and not saying a word.
    Often in those early years, we tried to make both sides of the family happy.  We would rush to one house, eat, rush to another house, eat, then drive home... more stuffed than the turkey and just as dead.  We eventually stopped doing that at Thanksgiving, but did continue for a number of years at Christmas.
     In high school, I invited the guy who ran the newsstand I worked in after school.  My mother was mortified and went over and politely uninvited him.  I think his slovenly habits and hobo like attire worked against him.
     I remember one year it was just Jackie, Julia and me.  We lived on Southview Drive, and I may have been working at a hospital in Rockford at the time.  We ate, then sat and looked at each other.  It was the most depressing dinner ever.
     One year we went to an in-laws and they served ham.  Ham!!  I never let her forget that she violated all American traditions plus deprived me of the dinner I had been dreaming about.
     There have been uncooked turkeys, undercooked turkeys, burnt pies, undercooked veggies....thankfully never at one time.
   Vague recollections of long departed aunts and uncles flood my mind at this time of the year.  They were always old, and I never, never imagined life at that age.
     Well, here I am.  And I am thankful for my health, my wife and darling daughters, my extended family, my friends, and all the people who have supported me by their friendships, caring, and willingness to put up with me.
     A blessed Thanksgiving to all.  And to all, good night.