THANKSGIVINGS PAST

For the first years of my life, up to about the age of eight, we always had Thanksgiving with my Berry Grandparents. My grandmother, Jessie, was a wonderful cook and could set a beautiful table. Her holiday table glittered and glistened. I always begged to spend the night at her house the night before so I could be up early and get to the kitchen where the tastes and smells were so absolutely glorious. Jessie had a stool for me to stand on so I could see and taste everything. She always had her sterling silver goblets on the table, and I was allowed to drink out of one. She gave me those goblets as a wedding present. Her dining room would seat eight or ten without crowding, but the chairs were covered with wool needlepoint and

they scratched the backs of my bare legs. That was if I got to sit in the dining room with the big folks. You see, I was the baby of the family for the first seven years of my life. Usually, there would be Mammy, my great-grandmother, Jessie and Grandy, Mom and Dad, my aunt Janice and uncle Jack Scott, my big brother and me, my great-uncle Carey Lindley (his wife died before I could remember her), Cary’s son, Bill Lindley, his wife, and two children. I was totally smitten with Bill who was an army air corps officer. I drooled on his spit-shined shoes even at the age of four. From there the numbers fluctuated over the years from 14 to 20. My grandfather died when I was eight years old and their farm, that adjoined ours, was sold. Those Thanksgivings in the big dining room at Jessie and Grandy’s ended, but I can remember them as if they were yesterday. When grace was said, everyone added something they were especially thankful for that day. Even I got to add my thanks for my pony, Brownie. After those years at my grandparents’ house, Mom took over the Thanksgiving dinner. We often had two or three cadets from Texas A&M who were un

able to go home for the holiday over for dinner. We always ate in the evening after the UT—A&M game, when they played at Kyle Field in College Station. I was always a sucker for a uniform. Then, over the years, we moved from Madisonville to Austin to Laredo to Houston, and the family got too scattered to get together every year, but my mom always had a beautiful, bountiful Thanksgiving table. When I got married and lived in Junction on the ranch, we drove to Houston to have turkey with my in-laws one year and my parents the next. It just didn’t feel the same, so when my husband, little girl and I moved back to Houston to open Salt Grass Saddlery, I took over Thanksgiving dinner duties. I declared that dinner was to be at my house, and amazingly, everybody who was in my part of the country showed up. The years passed and Buster and I divorced. I remarried and Kim and I moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming. I introduced those folks to a real Southern Thanksgiving, with cornbread dressing, pecan pie, and all the trimmings. They sometimes looked askance at my off erings, but they sure fell in and ate it all. Unfortunately, that husband in Wyoming and I divorced and Kim and I moved back to Texas. Then in 1972, I met and married Jack Cole. Jack was a Yankee from Chicago and Los Angeles, so I had to bring him up to speed on Southern cooking. We had some wonderful family Thanksgivings with all my family, which had grown with all the nieces and nephews. In the intervening years, Jack and I built a really neat house on our farm in Madisonville, and moved there in 1984 and opened Metal Concepts. Mom and Dad had divorced, and Dad had remarried and moved back to Madisonville. We had Thanksgiving a few times with Dad and his wife, Ruth, but by the time we moved there permanently, dinner was at our house. We would look for people who either lived too far from their families or had no families to invite for Thanksgiving. We usually had upwards of 14 people sit down to off er thanks. Those were great times with a truly diverse group of people. When Jack died in 1996, I’m afraid I just ran and hid. I really don’t even remember where or if I celebrated Thanksgiving. In 2001, I sold everything in Texas and moved aboard my catamaran sailboat on the

east coast. After sailing up to the Chesapeake the infamous summer of 2001, I started back south from Solomon’s Island, Maryland, on November 11 th . Thanksgiving day found me and three other boats in our fl otilla in the middle of Pamlico Sound. We had all forgotten what day it was. When someone remembered, we hailed each other over our radios, dropped anchor, and all four boats rafted up together. We each scoured our galleys, and together we had kielbasa sausage, mashed potatoes out of a box, and English peas out of a can. Of course, we had wine. It turned out to be a pretty special day for a group of new friends and Patrick, my cocker spaniel. It was also a bit melancholy because the horror of the September 11 attacks was still fresh, only two months previous. Still, we all gave thanks for our lives and asked God to bless all the lives lost and the brave souls that worked so hard to save as many lives as possible.

After the Thanksgiving of 2001, the next ones were celebrated with many new friends in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Some 40 or 50 gathered at Christa and Jim Kelsey’s house. They owned the Riverview Hotel on the Intracoastal Waterway, where Christa insisted on cooking the entire dinner. We would bring any adult beverage we might want to drink. What a fun day with really great friends. In 2008, I sold my boat and townhouse and returned to Texas. I do miss the camaraderie we shared in New Smyrna Beach.