THANKSGIVING AT HERMAN JUNCTION: POST #30

I was born on Thanksgiving Day. Not at Herman Junction though. I was born at Bay, Arkansas and moved to Herman Junction later. Some of my most memorable Thanksgiving Days though were spent at Herman Junction. It was not just a holiday for us, it truly was a day of Thanksgiving. We always had a big dinner and I loved that. Dad raised turkeys and one of them old gobblers was as mean as could be. Barbara remembers him and she remembers what happened to him. He was turned into Thanksgiving dinner. He flogged Barbara one time and as I look back on it I don't remember if Barbara or the gobbler won the battle. I suppose she rejoiced and thought that she had won for sure when she saw his eventual end.

My Mama could really make cornbread dressing. That was her specialty as long as she cooked for holidays or family gatherings. She always made Pumpkin pie although I didn't like that kind of pie much. We had all the normal Thanksgiving Day food and it was a real treat, right in the middle of the week too!

One of my most memorable Thanksgiving Days though was one when we didn't have all the traditional Thanksgiving food. We had been to Uncle Louis's to pull bolls that morning and it was cold as a beaver's belly. Uncle Everett and some of his kids were working with us. I remember how cold it was and I knew that it was Thanksgiving Day and we had a special dinner coming up later. My mouth watered all morning as I anticipated sitting down in a nice, warm, kitchen and eating all I could hold of that meal. But, when we got home I was surprised and thrilled to death when I saw what we were going to eat. Mama had fixed CHEESEBURGERS! Man alive, with the exception of corn bread I suppose that cheeseburgers and chili dogs were my favorite food. I have often wondered how many she prepared because there was a bunch of us to eat, but I can just see those bread pans full of cheeseburgers right now and it makes me hungry as I think about it. We didn't have to go back to the cotton patch that afternoon either and that made me especially happy. We spent the rest of the day just enjoying the day.

I mentioned chili dogs. I always loved chili and I loved hot dogs and when I learned from the Dairy Queen that you could put chili on hot dogs, that just seemed to be about the finest thing that I could think of. Of course Corn Bread has always been my favorite food. I have often said that if the Lord were to decide that there would be only ONE kind of food for the entire world and that I could choose it, the rest of you had better like Corn Bread because that would be it. But, chili dogs came pretty close to corn bread. I think that it is just awful that when I was a kid I didn't have the money to buy chili dogs. Now, I have the money and my heart doctor tells me that if I eat them they will kill me!

Thanksgiving for many years was the day for the Herman Junction Knight's to have their annual reunion. We started them at the 'big house' at Herman Junction and boy was that house ever full! We moved it from one place to another for several years and then as Dad and Mom got older we began having the reunion at Bay every year. Now that our family has grown so much and there are Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren, we have our reunion at another time so that Thanksgiving Day can be shared with others. It sure would be nice though to go one more time to Herman Junction and have Thanksgiving again and I know that would make everything well at Herman Junction.