🦃 “Thanksgiving, Back When Chaos Was Part of the Recipe”

*By Mark Morgan

www.markmorganbooks.com

Back in the late ’70s and all through the big-haired ’80s, Thanksgiving in a small country town like ours didn’t just happen — it erupted, like a casserole volcano wearing a marshmallow hat.

And Lord knows we wouldn’t have had it any other way.

You could tell it was Thanksgiving because by 7 a.m., half the town smelled like dressing, and the other half smelled like somebody had burnt the first batch and started over. The whole place had that warm, buttery fog drifting through it — the kind of aroma that could make a grown man tear up and a stray dog consider attending church for the first time.

At our house, the celebration began when Mama declared,“If y’all make this house any messier, I’m frying you with the turkey!”

Mama didn’t cook — she conducted Thanksgiving like she was leading a parade, one wooden spoon shout at a time. Pots clanged, kids scattered, and the screen door kept slamming so often the hinges started praying for mercy.

Dad? He was stationed in front of the TV watching football, holding the remote like it was the nuclear codes.Whenever Mama hollered for help, he’d mumble,“ I’m supervising. You can’t rush quality supervision.”

Grandpa sat at the table telling the same stories he’d told since Hoover was president. He was full of sayings sharper than a barbed-wire fence on a windy day:

• “If that turkey thaws any slower, we’ll be carving it on President’s Day.”

• “Don’t trust a man who won’t eat gravy — he’s hidin’ somethin’.”

• “A watched oven never cooks… especially if it’s broke.”

• 
  

And that year, wouldn’t you know it, the oven did break.

Mama screamed the kind of scream that made the windows reconsider staying installed. My Cousin — who always ate before grace — was halfway through a roll before the crisis even registered.

“Why’s everybody lookin’ nervous?” he said, butter glistening on his chin like a trophy.

“THE TURKEY IS STILL FROZEN SOLID!” Mama announced, pointing at the bird like it had committed a felony.

We worked on the oven and got her fixed enough to keep her going just enough to cook the bird.

Grandpa snorted.“That turkey’s so cold it could rent itself out as an air conditioner.”

By then, the family hunters were coming in from the woods — tracking mud, leaves, and one rumor of a ten-point buck they “almost got” but somehow never actually saw. They stepped through the house like a herd of elk in camouflage boots.

Kids zoomed in and out like somebody had paid them by the lap. Every time the screen door slammed, Grandpa muttered,“That door’s been through more battles than General Patton.”

And the food — mercy.

You couldn’t move without bumping into a dish somebody had made “just in case.”

Cranberry sauce still shaped like the can?Check.

Dressing so firm you could use it as a doorstop?Double check.

Sweet potatoes buried under half a bag of marshmallows?Check, check, and check.

Green bean casserole, pineapple upside-down cake, homemade rolls shiny with real butter, enough giblet gravy to waterproof the roof, and of course pecan pie — the kind so sweet it could put a hummingbird in a coma.

Then came the family favorite: the secret recipe casserole nobody could identify, but everybody ate out of loyalty and mild fear.

Finally, by some miracle that only small-town families understand, dinner made it to the table. We said grace, My cousin ate during grace, and the kids waited exactly three seconds before fighting over the drumsticks.

The turkey was half-cooked, the oven still broken but barely workin , the rolls kept disappearing like socks in a dryer — and it was perfect. Because the laughter was louder than the chaos, and the chaos was the best part.

Grandpa leaned back, patted his belly, and said,

“Folks, if this ain’t living, then living’s been overrated.”

About the Waldron News

It needs to be said — in a world spinning faster than a squirrel on espresso, local papers like the Waldron News are the keepers of our stories.They’re the memory banks, the history books, the front-porch swing where our town sits and talks to itself.Every laugh, every tradition, every good old-fashioned tale survives because places like this paper keep them alive.Without the Waldron News, half our memories would slip away like rolls in  My Cousins pockets.

Moral of the Story:

Thanksgiving isn’t about perfection — it’s about people.The food will wobble, the oven will break, the turkey will act like an iceberg…But the love, the laughter, and the togetherness?That’s the part that never burns, never spoils, and always comes back for seconds.