Dear Hearts and Gentle People

Thanksgiving is a traditional American holiday where families all over the United States sit down for dinner at the same time- - halftime.

It's a time when relatives, some you haven't seen in months and some you wish you never had to see again, show up bearing covered dishes filled with casseroles of assorted mystery meats. It's a happy time.

Traditions are strictly adhered to in my family. We do things simply because we've always done them a certain way and, by golly, that's just the way it is. If our first family Thanksgiving had included a flaming turkey we'd still be recreating that scene every year.

We're big on things like sweet potato souffle', cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce (the kind that retains the shape of the tin can from which you slid it), creamed potatoes, and ambrosia (which nobody but my mother likes to fix but everybody swears they'd die without). There's always enough food to feed an army.

That's the trouble with Thanksgiving. All that food and, two days later, wham! you're hungry again.

Since I am a stickler for traditions I have tried for the last thirty-nine years to contribute to the bounty by cooking something on "the list." The first turkey I ever cooked, I baked it at 450 degrees along with all the paper wrapped entrails still inside. The smell would have caused a buzzard to jump off a meat wagon.

The next year I cheated and tried the easy way out. I bought everything pre-cooked and flash-frozen in zip-loc bags, ready to heat and eat. Sometime later I heard my son tell a friend, "You know, everybody else has warm memories of a real Thanksgiving with real food. Every time I think of Thanksgiving, I have one vivid memory: walking into the kitchen and seeing lots of pots of boiling water and plastic bags bobbing up and down. It was like Thanksgiving on the Titanic."

One Thanksgiving I waited too late to purchase a turkey and had to take what was left at the store. The bird was so small it didn't even look like a turkey.The produce manager assured me it was a turkey but he didn't fool me. I'll always believe it was just a chicken with a gland condition.

I did better in subsequent years and have continued to improve with each new holiday. My specialty these days, one that is requested by the entire family, is macaroni and cheese. It's easy and it's virtually impossible to screw up. And for the record, it is 'macaroni and cheese,' not 'cheese and macaroni,' no matter what anybody else tells you.

I make absolutely wonderful sweet tea, or so I'm told. I don't doubt it, since I was raised on it. I used to drink it for breakfast, dinner, supper, and all in between. My mother used to make it so sweet it was like syrup. My grandaddy once mistook it for Log Cabin, liked it and if I'm not mistaken, ate his pancakes like that for as long as he lived.

Sports are always a part of our Thanksgiving tradition. Football, in particular. If Lincoln County isn't in some sort of play-off the week of Thanksgiving, somebody somewhere is playing and, come hell or high water, we will watch it on TV. Come to think of it I don't believe anyone in my family has ever had a conversation at my mother's on a holiday when they didn't have to yell over the constant roar of a sporting event in the background.

The only time the TV is silenced is for the two minute blessing before the meal.

"Y'all shut up and turn off the television," someone will scream. "We're fixin' to say the blessin'!"

The oldest member of the family always said the blessing so when my grandfather was alive the honor was his. "Kind Father, pardon our sins and give us thankful hearts for these and all our many blessings. For Christ's sake, amen."

When he died, my daddy used a slightly different version. "Lord, forgive us our sins and accept our thanks for these and all our many blessings. We ask for Christ's sake, amen."

The first Thanksgiving after Daddy died, I can't remember who prayed, but the blessing went something like this: "Jesus, Lord, and Holy Ghost, whoever eats the fastest, gets the most. Amen."

So much for tradition.

For years the tradition at my parents' home was that the children were the last to serve their plates. I liked that. It meant that, first of all, the artfully decorated congealed salad with the cherries depicting flowers didn't get butchered by eager little fingers, and the adults could admire Aunt Soand So's creativity before the onslaught of children who, by the way, were like race horses at the starting gate because they had been ingesting sugary leftover Halloween treats all morning to 'hold them over' until lunch.

Sad to say, but my mother abandoned that tradition years ago. She's a pushover when it comes to children. Now, when the grown-ups get to the buffet table it looks as if a pack of wolves has had its way with all of the food. Not to mention the fact that most of the kids, whose eyes are usually way bigger than their stomachs, have filled their plates with food they wouldn't eat on a dare on any other day. God love 'em.

After all the family, and some guy we'd never seen before who snuck in during the blessing, had eaten everything on the table including the pine cone turkey centerpiece, the men, sated and bored, usually gathered in the den around the television and stared blankly at the screen until most of them were sound asleep. With all their mouths wide open and the gutteral sounds they were making it looked and sounded like feeding time at a rabies clinic.

Sometime around mid-afternoon, after one huge collective yawn, the menfolk stood up and told their wives they were going home to (yes, it's true) "take a nap." The women had just finished cleaning the kitchen which meant that it was time for the children, who'd been outside playing, to come inside pleading, "We're hungry!"

After someone tossed each of them a biscuit and a piece of ham and shooed them out the door, the ladies had the kitchen all to themselves to enjoy the peace and quiet and, better yet, what was left of all the desserts. We'd sit there 'til dark, solving all the problems of the world while stuffing our faces. The perfect end to a perfect day.

I can't prove it but I'll bet the Pilgrims celebrated the exact same way.

Tradition. It's what makes this country great.

Happy Thanksgiving, dear hearts.