I’ve finished packing for my camping/hunting trip
and fixing to head out the door. I’m usually gone for a little over a week
for this annual trip, but I have to cut it short this year. We have a dinner
tonight, at the cabin, before opening day of gun season for deer, tomorrow
morning. Grilled dove breasts wrapped in bacon. Fried Bream with all the
fixings like jalapeño hushpuppies. Cubed venison steaks, breaded and fried.
Rabbit Brunswick stew. Boiled crawfish brought up by the Louisiana boys.
Coolers full of beer that I’ll just gaze at wistfully. Large bottles of
Rolaids.
I have received my marching orders from GF. She has decided to host her
family’s Thanksgiving dinner this year and I have been notified that I WILL
be co-host. Adding to her stress is the fact Thanksgiving Day is her
__birthday and she is taking it rather hard, so you can see why I’ll be
cutting the trip a little short. Especially since I leave the next week for
a fishing trip with 2 in Apalachicola.
So, hopefully to keep you entertained till I come back about Thanksgiving
(read real slow), I leave you with
Pup’s Thanksgiving Turkey
Here in the Southland, where I was raised so many years ago, dogs weren’t
kept just to have a dog. They had to have some sort of purpose in life. Like
watch dog or hunting dog or kids dog. Most of the time, one dog had to fill
all job descriptions. And nobody had house
dogs, they were all yard dogs. The closest thing to a house dog was family
pet and in my family that was almost always the best hunting dog.
Uncle NoPass had two rules about his dogs. One is they were all
female and two, they were all named for family and family friends. The
naming rule, of course, caused all kinds of confusion like when he would be
yelling for his dog, Judy (my mother, his sister‘s name) out the backdoor
“Dang it Judy, quit licking your butt and get over here.”
Like all rules there were exceptions. One of these was Fat Maggie. She was
so fat that she had to walk after the rabbits, but she had a nose so good
that she could smell today where the rabbit was thinking about going
tomorrow. The puppy was delivered by the owner with most of my family
gathered around to witness the event. There being no TV, we took our
entertainment where we could get it. When he first saw that puppy with its
distinctive chubby look, Ted said “Why she looks just like Fat Maggie” There
was a moment of silence from the family members who were gathered around. No
one in the family knew a Maggie. My Aunt, who was Ted’s childhood
sweetheart, began to question as to whether Uncle “no pass” had really been
in the Pacific for 3 years 9 months 22 days without a pass. The Soaps that
came later had nothing on my family for entertainment value.
The other exception was Pup. He knew who was top dog and it wasn’t any of us
kids. Uncle NoPass thought so highly of him that in cold weather it wasn’t unusual to
see me and my cousins bouncing around in the back of the truck with Pup
setting up front between NoPass and my aunt. He would look out the rear window
at us huddled up against the cab trying to get out of the wind with a sneer
on his insolent face. Uncle NoPass might have thought highly of him, but my aunt only
tolerated him. He was to dogs what Hustler is to magazines. The best word
description for him would be reprobate, although my aunt would be calling
him some words we didn’t know she knew later that fall.
The sisters rotated holidays and it was Aunt Kate’s turn to host
Thanksgiving. Uncle NoPass had picked out the biggest and best turkey at Mr.
Johnson’s yard bird farm and my Aunt had been preparing the house for a
month ahead of time. Rooms were dusted and everything was washed down. The
hardwood floors had been washed in vinegar water and were freshly waxed. All
us kids looked forward to the side hall being waxed. Except for old car
hoods on the pine straw coated hillsides, that was the only sledding
available to us here in the Deep South.
It was a cooler than normal fall that year and Pup had been feeling poorly
off and on. Uncle NoPass had convinced my aunt to let him keep Pup in a
storage/laundry room that was between the kitchen and the back porch during
these sickly spells. Pup was usually feeling his worst on nights that
coincided with the coldest temperatures, but my aunt was too distracted by
the holiday plans to notice.
My aunt put the turkey in to cook in the very early hours of Thanksgiving
morning and it finished cooking just before everyone was to meet at the
church for a quick Thanksgiving service, the church being an integral part
of our life.
She took the beautifully browned turkey from the oven and placed it on the
center of the long dining room table that was covered by a fine heirloom
tablecloth that had been passed down in her family. The old clapboard house
had never looked finer or smelled better than that morning. My aunt was
exhausted from the long weeks of preparation getting the house just right
for the family dinner but for her it was worth it.
As everybody piled into the old sedan to head to the nearby church building,
one of my cousins remembered something he had left and returned to get it.
He was in a hurry as he raced from room to room trying to find it, trailing
partially closed doors behind him.
While we were giving thanks at church, Pup smelling the delicious aromas
emanating from my aunt’s spotless and decorated dining room nudged open the
now unlatched storage door. He hopped up on the table, knocking over the
table settings in the process of dragging the turkey from the serving pan.
Then he left a trail of turkey drippings on the heirloom tablecloth and
along the hall floor before settling in to give his own thanks in the front
parlor.
The preacher didn’t keep us long that morning since he too was thinking
about the feast waiting him at the conclusion of the services. My large
extended family piled into the cars and headed to my aunt’s house for our
feast. She was beaming with pride as she opened the door and with a flourish
of her arm presented….. Pup laying on the front parlor couch with a serious
case of the fat hog blues.
Pup hopped off the couch as it dawned on him the turkey might not have been
meant for him. My aunt let loose some words that no one in the family
thought she knew as she grabbed an umbrella next to the door and went to
beat him severely about the head and shoulders as he raced down the hall.
Aunt Kate, hitting the turkey grease on her freshly waxed floor, slipped and
fell sliding down the hall like a bowler with his finger stuck. As her
Sunday finest rode up around her rather ample butt, she made a 8-10 split on
the halltree.
Pup, still dragging part of the turkey, made a circuit through the house
before finally dropping it in front of my uncle. Perhaps Pup meant it as a
peace offering, but my uncle wasn’t that dumb. Pup, with a look back at my
Aunt picking up the spare by knocking over a end table as she tried to get
her feet back under her, darted outside to hide under the chicken coop. My
aunt spent the next few days trying to coax him out while holding the
kindling ax behind her back.
The next week Ted’s old truck rattled up Cuz’s drive with Pup tied in the
back. Uncle No Pass, tired of having to fight for a piece of the covers with
Pup on the cold nights, announced that he had decided to take up fox hunting
and needed a fox dog or two. “Did Cuz want a fine turkey dog, he just wasn‘t
much of a house dog?”
See ya’ll next week.
posted by lighter at 3:34 PM
Sunday, December 01, 2002
© LCM3
Rimfire at Idlehourwebs dot com
