AS I LIKE IT!

NOVEMBER 30, 2016

Quote of the week:

“You should never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

—Old Irish saying

BEST THANKSGIVING EVER!

One of the many realities that force themselves upon you as you age is that you’re sick and tired of making a major Magilla out of Thanksgiving. Clista and I were reviewing our options for this year and came to a surprising conclusion. We were no longer willing to participate in 48 hours of cooking and preparation, followed by 20 minutes of eating the meal, topped off by four hours of cleaning up the whole staggering mess.

This year would be different. We were invited to go to Cincinnati to join Clista’s son David and his family. We thought about it and finally decided that neither one of us wanted to drive 500+ miles, stay in a hotel for four nights, then drive the 500+ miles back to Opelika. We are crazy about David, his wife Randi, and their children, but we’d rather see them in another setting.

Clista’ s son Todd and his wife, Debbie live on Lake Hartwell astride the Georgia-South Carolina border, and they were planning to leave on the Friday after Thanksgiving to go to Virginia to visit their grandchildren. They invited us to come for Thanksgiving, providing we were willing to leave when they left. The drive is only 200 miles, and if Atlanta weren’t in the way, we could be there in three hours or less. Even with Atlanta clogging the highways, we still made it in four hours.

The only caveat that we put on the trip was that we insisted that we all go out for dinner on Thanksgiving as our treat. We got no argument from Todd and Debbie. It was just before 3:00 Eastern time when we turned onto the asphalt road leading to their house.

This part of South Carolina is in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and the hills leading to Todd’s are steep and curvy. Some dumbass built his mailbox near the edge of the road, and I managed to destroy my left rearview mirror when I hit it. Clista, Todd, and Debbie insisted that I was too far over when I hit it, but I still think it was in the middle of the right-of-way. I decided to take a nap when we got to Todd’s to calm my nerves.

On Wednesday evening Todd served his famous smoked brisket, and we all pigged out. On Thursday morning we slept in until 6:30, don’t laugh, that’s late for folk’s our age, and Debbie served her breakfast quiche. After breakfast, Todd and I retired to his den to watch his beloved Cowboys play the hated Washington Redskins.

Dallas was on a nine-game winning streak and all of the pundits were predicting it to come to an abrupt halt, but Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott deftly guided the Cowboys to victory in what I hoped might be a harbinger of things to come in Saturday’s Egg Bowl. Todd asked what I thought might happen in Oxford, and I replied,

“Ole Miss is pretty banged up, and their defense might actually be worse than State’s, allowing us to outscore them. Whoever has the ball last will probably win.”

After the Cowboy’s game, we drove into the second exit in North Georgia and pulled into Shoney’s, our destination for Thanksgiving dinner. It was after 2:00, and the crowd had thinned out, but the buffet was filled with turkey, dressing, and all of the trimmings. Was it as good as home cooking? No way. But it was tasty, fresh and priced right. The best part is that Shoney’s did the dishes.

We watched another NFL game, and in deference to Debbie and Clista, we watched the Disney Christmas Special, which was an extravaganza of what passes for modern popular music. I wonder what happened to Perry Como and Dean Martin.

The next morning we all got up and left, were ordering breakfast at a McDonald’s by 8:00, and were back in Opelika before noon. The next day, my grandson, Jackson, came over and we watched the Egg Bowl. The Bulldogs put the finishing touches on my best Thanksgiving ever by trouncing the Rebels 55–20. It just doesn’t get better than that.