More Than A Turkey Once A Year!

I’m thankful for those soldiers who hung with Washington on Christmas day, 1776. I’m especially thankful for the ones who wrapped burlap bags around their feet in lieu of boots and walked the nine miles in the dead of night through a snowstorm to cross the ice cold Delaware River and surprise the Hessian troops in Trenton, New Jersey. Listen, the Continental Army, and with it America’s chance of survival, was down to its last strike. That one victory by a rag-tag group of misfits sparked hope in a desperate nation. We are here because they were there! And you’d better believe there wasn’t nothing rag-tag about their hearts….or their dreams!

I don’t know about you but I’ve spent my Christmases opening presents, feasting on turkey and dressing and watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” on TV. I’ve never wrapped a burlap bag around a foot in my entire life. I have not braved a frozen river at night in the middle of a snow storm. And it has never crossed my mind to bust open a door and stick a bayonet in the face of a brigade of hired soldiers from Germany.

Thanksgiving in this land comes in many shapes, forms and fashions.

I’m thankful we grew up without any money. We skipped all kinds of trouble because we couldn’t afford to get into it. We didn’t go without mind you…..it’s hard to miss what you didn’t have. And our love, laughter and joy was not “bought” or “for sale”; it was real and genuine. Materialistically, we were blessed with nothing........but that is exactly what we needed at the time! No tellin’ how me, Leon and David Mark would have ended up if we had been tempted by all the trappings that come with the burden of where to throw your extra money……

I’m thankful for the guy who added the words “Under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance back in 1954. Of course, I didn’t think so at the time. I had just spent my first grade year learning it sans the Creator reference. And low and behold, I show up for the second grade and Miss Dorothy explained that “they” had added some extra words. We had to get up and recite the pledge every morning! It was going to take some doing if they kept changing the thing……. None of us realized at the time how God was going to come under such attack in our nation one day.

I’m thankful for a tall, skinny Chicago Bear football player named J. C. Caroline. As a kid I was drawn to him because he didn’t have a first name and he played hard on every snap. When we’d choose up sides for the big game out in the front yard Leon would be Johnny Unitas. The other team’s quarterback would line up as Bart Star. Jim Brown, Lance Alworth and Dick (Night Train) Lane were usually in the game. I picked J. C. every time. It didn’t mater if I was on offense or defense. It didn’t matter the score, the weather conditions or the game situation at any particular moment. J. C. Caroline gave me somebody to be!

I’m thankful I was born south of the Mason-Dixon Line. This is not a slam at any of our northern neighbors. I’m sure they will defend their birthplace just as ardently. I’m just partial to “ya’ll” and “aw shucks”. There is something special about Memphis barbeque, Darlington racing, Alabama football, Georgia peaches (and the fruits not bad either), Nashville music, Lewis Gizzards’ columns and Mayberry. I appreciate the slower pace. I like those Magnolia lined drive ways up to the big house. I’m thankful we vote conservative. We proudly close our courthouses for Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. And if God hadn’t intended us to hunt, He wouldn’t have put so many deer in the forest.    

I’m thankful for Coca-Cola. That’s my drink of choice. Bad for you, you say! You could be right. But I grew up on milk. And more milk. And then, a little more milk. I reckon I was pretty healthy in my formative years. We got a coke out at the end of Stonewall Street about once every three months. It WAS the real thing! What a special treat. I told Mom on many occasions that one day I’d have money of my own and that I was going to drink a Coca-Cola every day! I fully realize that the coke taste today is not the same as those little six ounce bottles from the past. Nevertheless, I have tried to faithfully live up to the promise I made Mom those many years ago.

Just a little culinary tip for you this Thanksgiving, Coca-Cola goes especially good with giblet gravy and asparagus casseroles.

I’m thankful Buster Brown died. At least, I don’t have to put my feet into those concrete boxes he perpetrated on the youth of America for all those years. I’m thankful one-a-day multiple vitamins took the place of cod liver oil. I’m thankful kids today are wearing jeans with multiple rips and tears in them. It takes a little of the embarrassment out of the “iron on” patches I had to endure on my Tuf Nut jeans back in elementary school. 

I’m thankful for a sovereign being that lets me be me. I’m thankful for friends and family that overlook my short comings and the out-right idiotic things that unwittingly spring from my brain. I’m thankful for older folks that have shown me the way. I’m thankful for the younger generation that shares their enthusiasm with us. I’m thankful for every American veteran we saluted just a couple of weeks ago.

Thanksgiving…..don’t get me started!

And if you have read down this far, I’m also very thankful for you.

Respectfully,

Kes