Thanksgiving stuffed with memories

Today we gather to celebrate what I think is both a great family celebration and our greatest national holiday. In a few hours we will sit down together to share a traditional meal that will make us forget all the hand wringing over this being the most expensive Thanksgiving meal in history because of rising prices for turkey, squash, and cranberry sauce and all the other things that go into this meal. One pundit, whose idea of fine dining must be McDonald’s, suggested it would be cheaper to go out for dinner and order what, I wonder: a two-cheeseburger value meal?

There was a time when I was young and ambitious that I did the bulk of the Thanksgiving dinner preparation in our house and did a fine job if I do say so. However, like the leaves I no longer raked this year, at my wife’s suggestion my preparation will be limited to the brining, and roasting of the turkey. As with raking the leaves, I protested a little but frankly I’m happy that my burden has been lightened.

I will also be preparing a dish called scalloped corn which has been a Kirkpatrick family favorite for at least 140 years. It’s sort of a simple corn pudding made today with cream corn, milk, eggs, and cracker crumbs. Even in these inflationary times it remains a cheap side dish.

This year my wife and I will be joined for dinner by two of our children and their families, and a friend of my wife and me. Today there will be 10 of us for dinner at about 4 p.m. but I remember Thanksgiving dinners our family celebrated at my grandparents when there would be at least 15 seated for dinner in a small dining room so crowded that once seated you were there until dinner was over.

With a crowd like that a 25-pound turkey was a thought a necessity. Back them dinner was served at around 1 p.m. and I suspect that the reason for that was so we would be ready for turkey sandwiches at around 7 just before we went home, each family loaded down with leftover turkey.

Thanksgiving was the holiday when I learned to make whisky sours. From the time I was a young teen I had gone to my grandparents early to help set up the dining room and anything else that needed doing. Besides all the dinner preparations my grandmother mixed the whiskey sours and when I reached what was then the drinking age of 18, she turned the job over to me and the adults seemed to like them perhaps because I made them just a little stronger than my grandmother did.

Every year, it invariably happened that my uncle who owned the local Western Auto Store would get a call from “Beanie,” whose garage was always open on Thanksgiving to fix Thruway breakdowns. It was always because he needed a set of points or some other part to fix a car. So, every year my uncle, always complaining, would leave his meal to go to the store and get the part. It happened so often that it was almost considered a Thanksgiving tradition in our family. I always wondered though If Beanie ever ate Thanksgiving dinner with his family.

Beanie would really have given you the shirt off his back. His real name was Carlton. I don’t know how he got the name Beanie because I never saw him wearing a beanie cap but only a grimy baseball cap with the Gulf Oil logo barely peeking through the grime. In addition to his garage, he also drove a school bus and was the village fire chief for ages until he had to give the job up when advancing deafness made it impossible for him to hear the fire alarm in those prescanner days.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it doesn’t involve gift buying or much decorating but provides a chance for families to get together, to eat a meal together, enjoy each other’s company with no pressure except to prepare the meal.

Today before, during, or after dinner Bills’ fans will be glued to their television sets as the Bills make a second visit in just four days to Detroit’s Ford Stadium to take on the Lions in their traditional Thanksgiving game. If I were a betting man, and I am not, I would put my money on the Bills.

Finally, I want to wish each of you a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com