A Not so Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving

Thanksgivings were always held at my grandma's house, which was kind of funny because Nannie, as we called her, couldn't cook. She didn't know that, with the exception of her desserts, everyone avoided her cooking. Lucky for us, she had somehow managed to inherit the baking gene from her own mother, but the bus stopped at cooking any kind of real food.

Every year that she insisted we all have Thanksgiving at her house, Mom desperately tried to convince her otherwise. But when Nannie was adamant, she was adamant. So Mom got the idea to have a potluck Thanksgiving. She phoned all the relatives and assigned them each a dish. Since Nannie was given dessert duty, we all felt Thanksgiving would be safe again. It wasn't.

When we arrived on the big Turkey Day, we were greeted by Nannie's twenty-one year old cat, Billie. He had four teeth left and eyes like wrinkled old apples. His meow sounded more like a hoarse cough. Or horse cough. The big gray and white tabby, who looked more like a dried prune, would retreat to the back yard, dig a hole, and stick his head into it. I was convinced the old mange ball was trying to put himself out of his misery, but Nannie would just go out and pick ol' Billie up and give him a big kiss, right on the lips. It would have been cute to see this if it wasn't for the drool strings dropping from Billie's tired mouth. "Billie, you silly willy! Sticking your head in the sand!" Nannie would mockingly scold. She'd set him down on the couch and Billie would flop down in defeat.

Every relative from one end of the state to the other was there. There was my Uncle George who was a minister of a huge congregation. I was ecstatic when Uncle George came. As the minister of the group, he was always asked to pray over the food and he had the fastest prayer in the west. That meant we could eat quicker. His prayer went like this: Thank you, food, Amen. I figured he must have some kind of deal with God because mom would never let me get away with a prayer made up of four words.