My First Memory of Thanksgiving

Something EXTRA November 1979

Silver Linings

by Terri Andersen
My first memory of Thanksgiving was going to the poultry market with my mother to select a live turkey. The sound of the cackling birds and the smell that accompanied it should have sworn me off turkey forever. But the transformation that took place on Thanksgiving day was enough to cancel out the cringing feelings I had as I watched my mother pluck feathers and clean out all the turkey’s insides by hand the day before the big feast. Thank heavens, modern technology has made that unnecessary today, or my children would never know the taste of turkey—at least not one made at home. As the years passed, mother gave in to modern ways somewhat and bought her turkey in a butcher shop. There was a year, though, when she thought our Thanksgiving would be a turkeyless one, since there was a shortage of turkeys that year and in order to get one you had to have a special pull with the butcher. On the rare chance that a turkey might be available somewhere, she sent me out in search of one, not really expecting me to be successful. In my youthful innocence, however, I walked into the first butcher shop I saw and nonchalantly asked for a 20-pound turkey. Whether the butcher thought I was a good customer's daughter or if he just happened to have a cancellation on an order, I’ll never know, but he sold me the turkey with no questions asked, much to the astonishment of my family When I arrived home with it. The only thing my mother couldn’t figure out, though, was how the turkey got an empty gum wrapper and some dirt attached to it. I didn't dare tell her the bag it was in had torn and the turkey fell out onto the Street. Luckily, a passerby who saw my dilemma found another bag for me, and a good rinsing of the turkey at home made it good as new. Mother was so thankful just to have the turkey, she figured it was a gift from heaven and under those circumstances it must be an okay bird. Since ours was the house where all the relatives gathered, to serve a dinner without the main attraction was unthinkable. You might have the squash, pumpkin pie, biscuits, dressing and all the rest, but without that big bird, it just wasn’t the same. Why everyone gathered at our house, I’ll never know. We lived in a small city apartment at that time and didn’t even have a dining room. When it came time for dinner, into the living room went the kitchen table, with all the leaves we could squeeze into it, surrounded by the strangest assortment of chairs. But as long as we were all together, it didn't really matter what we sat on. The aroma coming from the kitchen and the excitement of all the company is a memory that lingers to this day.
There was no TV, so talk was plentiful and there was always a favorite aunt to patiently play checkers with us until we had our fill. Then there was papa and his cranberry sauce. No way would he tolerate the canned version—it had to be the real thing or nothing. As we sat there puckering our faces from the tart taste of the cranberries, he would tell us of all the dangers of canned foods. And, heaven forbid, someone should try to add a little sugar to sweeten the cranberry sauce. He also had very definite opinions as to the dangers of white Sugar. In later years, after I had married and invited my parents to my house for Thanksgiving dinner, papa wasn’t taking any chances on the kind of cranberry sauce I might serve. He came with his own bag of
fresh cranberries and proceeded to cook them for us all, Splattering red spots all over the kitchen as the cranberries popped, but fresh sauce he had to have. I might add that the first turkey I ever roasted didn’t fill the house with quite the same aroma as mother's turkey did. How was I to know that some Sneaky packer hid a paper bag of giblets in the turkey's neck cavity? And roasted paper and gizzards just don't have the most enticing aroma. But I learned as I went along and soon my house had the same luscious smells that mother's did in my growing-up years. The addition of TV to our lives added a new dimension as the kids watched the Thanksgiving parade while the turkey roasted and the warmth from the kitchen and anticipation of a house filled with relatives was creating new memories for a new generation, mingled with old value from an old-fashioned Thanksgiving.