That Little Voice

As a kid I don’t remember many Thanksgivings, but as an adult I have lots of flashbacks of great times together.

Perhaps my favorites were the years when my Dad and his wife, and my sister and her brother-in-law would meet my husband and me in Abilene, a town about half way between Amarillo and Austin.

We would gather in our motel rooms on Thanksgiving eve, my Dad always arriving early since he was retired and wanted to get ‘things underway’.

The ‘things’ he wanted to get started on were the multitude of items for our Thanksgiving meal, as well as a beer or two. Once they arrived, Dad immediately plugged in an electric appliance he brought from his kitchen and put the turkey on to begin it’s roasting for the next day’s meal. He saved the chores of cutting up the sweet potatoes, and begin

He saved the chores of cutting up the sweet potatoes, and beginning the dressing til morning, and stacked the ingredients for the fruit salad and the green bean casseroles nearby in order to have them handy for the next day turkey day.

Of course his room was crowded with the cooking utensils, knives, forks, plates, and whatever else he thought we might forget to haul with us, along with butane burners, pots, pans, and more electric cookers. Yep, he prepared our entire Thanksgiving meal in all of our mo

Yep, he prepared our entire Thanksgiving meal in all of our motel rooms, hoping not to short out the electricity in all the rooms of the motel. Some years it worked, but sometimes we had to delay certain food items in order to keep the lights and televisions working throughout the building.

When management came looking for the source of the blackout, Dad would invite them for Thanksgiving dinner, and unplug the appliances that seemed to be the big electricity guzzlers.

We would usually snack on bologna and cheese sandwiches for the evening meal, saving our big appetites for the next day’s ‘motel banquet.’ We would crowd into one room, sit around on beds and various chairs dragged from one room to another, and play our favorite card games, drinking beer, wine, or other ‘adult beverages.’

On Thanksgiving morning, the frying, roasting, baking, grilling, broiling, microwaving, and sautéing got serious, and we all stepped up the pace of making sure we had everything we needed in order to enjoy the meal as we watched football games for hours, laughing, shouting, and booing when necessary.

Then we would spend the evening gorging ourselves on turkey sandwiches, reheated dressing, cranberry sauce, and more pecan and pumpkin pies we had brought with us.

We had several years of motel room memories of Dad’s cooking our Thanksgiving buffets, with the hope we wouldn’t be kicked out before we had a chance to finish our meals.