THANKSGIVING

As November came to a close, we looked forward to the holiday season, a time for storytelling and feasting. Chores would still need tending to, of course, but soon we would pause, however briefly, to gather around the table with family and celebrate the harvest season just past.

Our extended family took turns hosting Thanksgiving dinner. Sometimes we had Thanksgiving dinner at home, surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins. Other times we traveled to a relative’s home for the celebration. One Thanksgiving dinner that is forever embedded in my memory took place at my Aunt Louise and Uncle Roy’s farm, east of Wild Rose. Aunt Louise was my mother’s older sister, and when she put on a meal—especially a Thanksgiving meal—she wanted everything to be just right. She and Roy had no children, so according to my mother Aunt Louise had the time “to put on the dog,” a phrase country folk used to describe an occasion just a tad finer than what was ordinarily expected. She brought out her good dishes, her finest tablecloth, her “only for company” silverware. She worked for several days baking pies and breads and planning a menu that would be both memorable and hard to top (it seemed sisters sometimes found it necessary to compete with each other, especially when it came to entertaining and, even more importantly, cooking and baking).

It was about a half-hour drive to Aunt Louise and Uncle Roy’s farm, so at about eleven o’clock that morning we all piled into the Plymouth and made our way along the sandy country road that snaked through swampland and then topped the little hill where their farm buildings were situated.

I could never tell if Uncle Roy liked kids or not. I suspected he didn’t, because he mostly ignored my brothers and me. But we enjoyed just looking at him, because he had the biggest ears we’d ever seen. They seemed to start somewhere near the top of his head and continued on down halfway to his shoulders. I figured that if those ears could flap, Uncle Roy could fly.

We arrived at their farm around 11:30, which gave my brothers and me a chance to nose around the farm a bit before the noon meal. As we got out of the car, Uncle Roy’s big yellow mongrel dog, Ralph, greeted us. He was as friendly as a dog could be. His tail wagged as he pushed close to Ma with the hope of a little petting. But Ma didn’t like Ralph. She pushed him away, so he walked over to us boys, and we petted him enthusiastically.

Before we set out on our tour of the farm, Ma warned, “Don’t you boys get dirty, now. Remember, you’re wearing your good clothes.” We’d heard that admonition many times, but it never prevented us from doing a little exploring. Uncle Roy didn’t have much in the way of buildings: an ordinary little barn that housed his skinny Guernseys, a granary, a corncrib, a pump house, and a shed. After peeking in the barn—nothing interesting there but a cat that skittered off when we pushed open the creaky door—we checked the corncrib. It was only half full, which meant Roy had had a poor corn crop this year. Then we trekked over to the car shed, where Uncle Roy and Aunt Louise kept their green 1928 Chevrolet. It looked brand-new. What really amazed me was its beautiful wooden steering wheel. I didn’t know what our Plymouth’s steering wheel was made of, but it sure wasn’t wood.

I was sitting in the Chevrolet turning the steering wheel and pretending to drive when Ma called us to dinner. We filed into the house and took the places that Aunt Louise pointed out to us. Uncle Roy sat facing a window that looked out on a little field in front of the house. Ma and Pa sat on the opposite side of the table with Donald between them—they had long ago learned never to put Donald and Darrel together at a table. Aunt Louise sat on a chair nearest the kitchen, and Darrel and I sat next to Uncle Roy.

Oh, the smells in that room! Freshly baked bread, steaming mashed potatoes, a huge bowl of yellow squash, another of home-canned peas and carrots, a bowl of tiny little onions swimming in a scrumptious sauce, a fancy glass dish of homemade dill pickles. And a huge platter of roast turkey. Aunt Louise also had fancy water glasses, filled and sitting in front of each of us.

After a brief prayer, we dug in, trying to remember Ma’s earlier warning that we should eat like young gentlemen and not spill anything on Aunt Louise’s tablecloth.

When everything had been passed and our plates were heaped with the special foods of Thanksgiving, everyone was quiet, busy pushing food into our mouths. And then it happened. No one saw it coming.

Uncle Roy—who had said nothing since we sat down other than a few mumbled words of grace—yelled at the top of his voice, “RALPH!” Clearly he had spotted his dog committing some unforgivable deed.

Donald jumped at the outburst and spilled his water glass. Water began seeping across the fancy tablecloth, turning it a soppy gray. I bumped my plate, knocking a slab of turkey onto the tablecloth in front of me. Pa dropped a huge hunk of freshly buttered bread on the table. Darrel spilled a spoonful of carrots and peas he’d been dishing up, missing his plate by several inches. Aunt Louise asked, “Good God, Roy, what is it?” Ma looked like she was in pain as she surveyed spilled food everywhere. Darrel and I began chuckling. Donald didn’t know if he should bolt for the door or take the consequences of the spilled water. Pa just sat quietly, smiling broadly.

Ma and Aunt Louise scraped up the spilled food. Cloth napkins soaked up the water. Soon we were back to eating as if nothing had happened. I never did find out what Ralph had done to evoke such a loud response from his owner. But of all the Thanksgivings we celebrated during my growing-up years, the one at Uncle Roy and Aunt Louise’s farm is the one that my brothers and I remember most vividly. It was only a couple of years after that memorable dinner that we got word that Uncle Roy had died. My brothers and I missed him. I suspect Ralph did, too.