”I smell turkey a-cookin.”
The rain has started, but it has been light. The forecast is for rain all day into tomorrow. It has been a long while since the last rain. This storm is welcomed.
My week has been busy with more to come. Today and Saturday I have concerts, but tomorrow’s concert has been cancelled, and I’m glad. Four in one week plus practice and a lesson is a bit over the top.
Life is filled with mysteries. Some are never solved. I was a part of one yesterday. I was on the mid-Cape, on my way home from my concert. I was moving along until I hit bumper to bumper traffic. It was slow going, start and stop, start and stop. Finally the traffic broke. I looked around. There was no accident, no hapless speeder stopped by the police and no car disabled on the side of the road. Why it was bumper to bumper is the unsolved mystery.
When I was a kid, the best part of Thanksgiving was the two and a half day school week, and Wednesday was a bust. We got out at 10:30 and spent the morning mostly coloring turkeys and making one out of a Dixie cup for the body and construction paper for tail. That became a Thanksgiving table decoration.
My mother always bought an enormous turkey which I swear we ate for days and days, even weeks. It defrosted in the sink. My sisters and I remember my mother waking up in the wee hours on Thanksgiving to get the turkey ready. She made her stuffing first. I still love her stuffing. The key is the Bell’s seasoning. The Bell’s box which looks old, from an earlier time, has never changed. The turkey on the front looks like it belongs in the oven, plucked of course. It has long been a New England tradition but is now available all over. Before my sister could buy it in Colorado, we had to send her some. I remember the turkey cooked for hours. My mother would baste it, and when the oven opened, the aroma made my mouth water, and I’d beg my mother to give me a bit of the stuffing, hanging out of the turkey and crusted on the end. The windows steamed. The kitchen was hot.
My Thanksgiving memory drawer is overflowing, filled with the sights and smells of all those Thanksgivings of my childhood with my mother always the biggest, the most prominent part of all my memories of Thanksgiving.
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November 21, 2024 at 4:07 pm
Hi Kat,
Another clear sky with comfortable temperatures topping out at a pleasant 69°.
Monday night we went to a sneak preview of the movie Wicked. I liked it, but my daughter is in love with it. We saw it in the big theater in the cineplex with the surround sound. My daughter bought the popcorn with the souvenir metal container, and the souvenir drink cup. I think she spent more on the popcorn and the souvenirs than we spent on the admission. 🙂
Our typical Thanksgiving day, is the parade, the dog show, and the Dallas Cowboys football game. The Cowboys stink this year worse than during the previous 29 years that Jerry Jones has owned the team. Unfortunately, he won’t fire the general manager, because he won’t fire himself. Attorneys have a saying that Jerry Jones should take as advice, “An attorney who represents himself in court has a fool for a client”.
I’m not a fan of turkey. I only like the dark meat and modern industrial turkeys have been bred to produce huge breasts, which is what most people like, and very tiny thighs and legs. Turkeys are not one of nature’s most intelligent creatures. If a group of them are outside, and it begins to rain, then if one turkey looks up with her mouth open, then they all will copy her and then they will all drown. A couple of years ago, in our employee parking lot, there lived a wild turkey. It looked nothing like the frozen birds in the grocery store. One year my better half made a duck instead. I liked it a lot. I now park in the handicap spaces, so I don’t know if the turkey is still out back where the able bodied employees park.
Earlier today, my wife went to Costco and she didn’t see that they had any of their smoked turkeys. One year we bought one and it was very good. Other years we’ve had brisket, Cornish game hens, and even a chicken. If it weren’t for Norman Rockwell, most of our winter solstice holidays might be very different.
November 22, 2024 at 1:26 am
Hi Bob,
It has been raining most of the day. It started slowly and got a bit heavier in the afternoon.
I always think the refreshments cost more even without the souvenir holders. I go to matinees to save money. I do want to see Conclave so maybe I’ll treat myself next week. I buy a drink and popcorn or a drink with candy I sneak in.
I’ll watch the parade and the dog show. I usually make myself a breakfast, some think I seldom do. I’ll have dinner in the early afternoon, around 2. I ordered my dinner as I’ll be by myself and won’t cook. The dinner has two appetizers, turkey with all the fixings and apple crisp for dessert. I had it last year too, and there is enough for a meal of leftovers.
I really like turkey, white or dark meat. Wild turkeys were here when the Pilgrims came but died out in the 1850’s. They were reintroduced in 1984, 18 birds, and in 1995, 28 birds. They are everywhere. A group of them live by the pond at the end of my street. They roost on branches. They walk down my street as if they own it.
I’m sorry you to tell you but the turkey and rain story is a myth. They are really neat birds. I read an article last week in the Cape Times all about them. Also, try here:
https://animals.howstuffworks.com/birds/turkey-drown.htm
November 22, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Thanks for the article. Maybe the wild ones won’t drown, but the industrial birds would if they ever went outside. I think they spend their entire short lives inside the place where they hatch and never see the light of day. This environment plus the years of inbreeding has produced a really dumb animal, regardless what this author reported.
November 22, 2024 at 12:05 pm
Every article I read said the same thing, that they do not drown in the rain. Domestic turkeys are dumber than wild turkeys who are actually smart. Turkeys are a common sight here.