From the time I was in third grade, we lived at the opposite end of my Childs grandparents' farm, about 3/4 of a mile from their house. A long gravel lane extended from our house to theirs. The first half mile or so was pretty flat, then climbed steadily up a pretty steep hill (by Columbia County standards) to their house.
My mother viewed Thanksgiving morning as a golden opportunity to have the household staff (her oldest three children) perform several hours of drudge work around the house, seeing as how God had failed to provide her with paid household staff and she was much too pretty to clean her own house, although she firmly believed a house should be kept in a state resembling a spread from House Beautiful Magazine.
Our mother wasn't big on cooking, so thankfully our daddy fed us until I was old enough to cook. (That was a young age around our house back then. I could prepare a full meal by the time I was 8.) This meant she wasn't asked to cook or host Thanksgiving or any other big meals throughout the year. It was in the best interest of all involved.
Because she was a serious TV addict, our daddy felt behooved to toss out the TV when I was 3. Otherwise, we'd have wandered away and drowned in the pond while she watched soap operas, obvlivious to our existence. Seriously. So TV was a huge thing, especially with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade about to air.
My siblings and I figured out by the time I was in junior high that this half-day festival of cleaning the Bodie plantationwas going to happen every Thanksgiving morning without fail, so when I was in eighth grade, we spontaneously produced and directed "The Great Turkey Escape".
We woke up at the crack of dawn, made our beds, got dressed, brushed our teeth, and left a note that looked something like a playbill. It read "The Great Turkey Escape". Below, I wrote "Written by Laurie Childs. Produced by Cyndi Childs. Directed by Mac Childs, Jr.", after which I wrote a brief explanation of how the Thanksgiving turkeys were fleeing for their lives this Thanksgiving morning and would be seeking refuge at the home of their grandparents at the other end of the farm. Then just about the time it got light enough to see safely, we put on our coats and shoes and quietly left the house and headed up the frost-laced lane to our grandparents' home.
My grandmother always seemed to enjoy teaching me to cook and having me help in the kitchen when she prepared meals. Yes, it meant working but it also meant being loved and taught and nurtured and appreciated. That wasn't the sort of thing working for my mother included, so I worked my hardest to learn and help. Funny how that works.
The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade would start long after we'd begun cooking, so I could watch it unfold from the kitchen pass-through, occasionally taking breaks to sit in front of the TV, amazed at the floats, enjoying the marching bands. The smells were wonderful, and the feeling I was loved and appreciated made me more thankful than anything possibly could have. My siblings sat in front of the TV and did pretty much nothing, but I didn't care. I was doing what I loved with a woman who loved me.
Every Thanksgiving until I was out of high school, my siblings and I repeated the Great Turkey Escape. Every year our dad made sure she was distracted long enough for us to reach safe haven, and every year, our mother was really, really unhappy about it, and we heard about it in no uncertain terms, but it was worth it.
After the parents made their way up to the big house, we sat down to a wonderful, Southern-style Thanksgiving dinner. In addition to uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents, there were always guests - single or widowed professors from the college, along with any student who had stayed on campus for the long weekend. Everyone was welcome and everyone acted accordingly. It was wonderful and warm and makes my current childless, relative-less situation all the more lonely.
I'm having Thanksgiving lunch at a restaurant today with my ex, George, and with Bill Dugan. I'm thankful I'm not totally alone.
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