Memories of Thanksgivings Past

The turkey is roasting, stuffed to the limit with my mother’s special dressing. The entire house smells like every Thanksgiving and Christmas in my memory. I can hardly wait to eat and, the beauty of it all is; I didn’t have to cook.

That right there is something to be grateful for.

The first Thanksgiving dinner that I ever cooked was for-and with-my college roommates. We were all scheduled to leave campus for our respective hometowns to spend the holiday with our families and wanted to mark the day together before we did so, we planned an elaborate celebration for the weekend before the break. It was a learning experience for all of us and, in doing it; we each gained an appreciation for our mothers or grandmothers who had cooked before us.

I was in charge of the turkey and stuffing and I must have made fifteen calls to my mother to ask questions and for clarification on answers to questions that she had already given me.

My roommates each made their own dishes and we served the meal to the boys from downstairs. The boys, I should add, were from the East Coast, Boston, I believe. They were city boys reveling in the “country life” they were finding in Colorado and we got a huge kick out of watching their experiments.

For example, the previous spring, the boys had attended the annual “Chick Days “event at the local farm implement store (not quite sure they found the “chicks” they were expecting, exactly) and had become the proud owners of a baby chick, a duckling and a small turkey, pets they had grown to love in the months leading up to Thanksgiving so; our choice of the traditional Thanksgiving meal probably appeared somewhat insensitive as far as they were concerned. Of course, that didn’t stop them from eating like they hadn’t had anything but Ramen in months.

Which, in all honesty, they probably hadn’t.

That Thanksgiving remains one of my favorite memories of the holiday. I had a lot to be thankful for and, happily, I still do, I still count my roommates among my best friends and, someday, I think we all hope to reconnect with the boys from Boston.

We won’t be reconnecting with their chicks, however because, after realizing how ridiculous an idea it was to try to raise poultry in a two-bedroom apartment (the mess, good Lord); the boys served them for dinner the following Thanksgiving.

True story.