The Ghost of Thanksgivings Past

Yesterday's Thanksgiving was pretty standard by our family's "Bat Shit Loony Scale", so there's not much to tell.

However, I was recently reminded of a Thanksgiving that took place long ago.

Back in the magical year of 1998, my dad was working the night shift for a railroad company.  The Wednesday night/early Thursday morning of Thanksgiving was no exception.

My family that resides primarily in southeast Indiana invited us down for the holiday.

After explaining my dad's schedule and giving our best ETA to them, we agreed to be there by, let's say... 3pm.

So, after getting a highly inadequate amount of sleep, my dad drove us down to Liberty, Indiana.

For those of you poorly acquainted with Indiana trivia, Liberty hosts a whopping 2,000 people, is very agricultural (heavy on the corn and pigs) and one could actually walk to the Indiana/Ohio border in  less than 20 min., should one become that bored (I've done it twice).

We made the 3-hour drive to this magical haven, comforted only by the promise of turkey, butter-soaked mashed potatoes and slightly burned pumpkin pie.

As we entered my grandmother's house, we saw our entire extended family on my dad's side seated at the dining room table.

Given that I was 13 or 14 years old at the time, and therefore starving, I remember thinking, "Weird.  They're just sitting here waiting on us?"

Upon further inspection, I saw that the plates had been used, silverware was dirty and the turkey was good and carved.

They. Had. Already. Eaten.
 .
At the time, I couldn't see past my own hunger and frustration at being made to eat a light lunch and sit in the car for three hours so we could drive to BFE to eat their leftovers.

Looking back, my poor dad did all this on a crappy 4 hours of sleep and complained a lot less than I did.

Getting back to my righteous indignation, we were warmly welcomed and invited to the table.  I remember being told, "There is plenty for you guys!  We made sure to leave you some!"

It turns out that "some" meant a little dry turkey (ugh), green bean casserole (cack) and sugar cream pie (vom).

Mashed potatoes?  Gone.
Corn?  Eaten.
Rolls?  Depleted.
Deviled eggs? Hoovered.
Stuffing?  Ruminated.
Pumpkin pie?  Wolfed.

That night, we stopped at a Burger King off I-65, and let me tell you, that double cheeseburger more than adequately filled the void of Thanksgiving.

Plus, I was too young to drink.

**This post was inspired by Kelly's story at Speaking From The Crib.