The thing I remember most about Thanksgiving, as a kid, was the fact that my father and I would disappear until it was time to eat. I was born when he was 45 years old, and he was the youngest of nine children. His mother passed away not long after I was born, but my mother’s mother always came to visit. Not only that, she had a son and another daughter that lived within close proximity. One way or another, my gram would find a way to make it to all three Thanksgiving meals. My mom’s sister seemed happy enough to just let my grandmother do whatever she wanted in her kitchen. There was no way Gram was going to be able to tell my uncle’s wife how to do anything in her kitchen. Then, there was my childhood house, where gram would show up to help my mom cook.
Gram would do everything at my aunt’s house, and simply give a few orders to my aunt or her kids. They didn’t get lazy about the meal, but they basically functioned as her hired help. If hired help worked for free. And couldn’t quit and go home. That meal was early, sometimes closer to 11 than noon. After eating a small lunch, she would drive a mile to our house, where she would begin to take over the meal that was already in process.
“What do you need me to do?” gram would ask.
“Nothing,” mom always answered, “You can just relax if you want.”
“Okay,” gram always sat down in the kitchen. “You are doing that all wrong,” she would then stand up again and start whisking or pouring or mixing, or basting, or whatever. She would then stay at our house until we ate at supper time. If you got hungry before supper, there were always pies or other snacks available. She would then eat a small supper with us, before going to her son’s house, where she would eat dessert. That way she visited all three of her kids. I mean, she had a couple other kids, but they all fled the area—a son to Connecticut and a daughter to the suburbs of Philadelphia. When you live in Western Pennsylvania, Philadelphia is like another state. It is the outskirts of New Jersey, as far as we were concerned. The relatives from Philly would come visit the day after Thanksgiving and stay for a few days. My uncle Lester had no places to hunt deer in the suburbs, and his family would stay at my aunt’s house and they would deer hunt with us. The rifle season for deer always began the Monday after Thanksgiving.
“Let’s go hunt rabbits,” dad would say to me, “And avoid all the commotion.” Commotion was the right word too. It wasn’t conflict. Not exactly. Though, dad wasn’t far off in saying, “Only your grandmother can turn three houses on its head in one day.” Most of my memories of Thanksgiving are in the woods, at least after I was old enough to hunt. Rabbit hunting with my dad always seemed to be a time to relax and be centered. My father did not have a career. He had a job. Those were his words. He got paid by the hour, took all the overtime he could get, and dealt with foremen that he referred to by anatomical references rather than their names. At least they were always parts of the anatomy when he talked about them at home, and more often than not at work too. When things were bad enough, he would let loose with all the bad words to his boss.
“Get a career,” he would tell me, “Don’t spend your life at a place that makes you miserable and treats you like equipment. Stick to the books.”
Looking back, it was the sort of misery that brought some satisfaction. There were years that he made more money than some of the management, simply because he worked so much overtime. Sometimes it was 80 hours per week for what seemed like forever. One time, a guy got hurt at work, and it meant he got a couple months of sixteen hour days, seven days a week. A favorite topic was how many more hours he had put in than anyone else in his department.
When we were afield with dogs chasing rabbits, he was a different person. He would laugh when I missed rabbits, and he would cheer when I got them. He wouldn’t even shoot at a rabbit unless I got my limit. On two separate occasions during my childhood, he took rabbits from my vest and put them in his game vest. “Go on,” he said, “Go get another one. We will pretend that I shot this one.” He would sit on a stump and listen to the chase, puffing on his pipe. He told me that he could have shot all kinds of rabbits that he let go. Sure, there were days where I would get my limit and he would shoot one or two. More often than not, however, he would pull down on my game vest and say, “Four rabbits getting heavy? That’s enough for today, your mom cooks them for us, but it ain’t her favorite. I have had enough overtime that she probably won’t cook these ones until you beg for them.” There were plenty of times that we would have rabbit night. My dad would invite buddies over from work, some of them had rabbit dogs too. Rabbit night was always in the backyard, cooking over an open fire. The guys could drink a beer and tell jokes that were not appropriate for their wives to hear. The wives were inside having dessert. A cast iron Dutch oven was utilized as a big frying pan and the rabbits were quartered and cooked in lard or Crisco. The rabbits were breaded and deep fried. The rabbits shot on Thanksgiving were often eaten this way, after deer season was over, but before Christmas. We would have a few other big “Bunny Fries” per year too. It was like a fish fry, but better. My mom breaded the rabbits in the kitchen. I carried them outside and got to cook and serve the rabbits to the guys as. We cooked a few at a time. Then talk, then a few more rabbits into the pan.
“I just bit into a pellet in the hind quarter!” my uncle Tom, dad’s brother, once yelled, “Bobby, you didn’t lead that one enough! You shot a bit behind it.” the guys all got a big laugh.”
“That’s not true,” I took my time grabbing a couple hind legs with tongs from the Dutch oven, so I could think of a response, “My dad told me that he shot that one in the butt on purpose, and I was supposed to serve it to you special.” That got another big laugh.
Dad got burned bad at work once, spent a lot of time in the hospital. He was hospitalized for bladder cancer a few times too, before his bladder was removed. Mom cooked rabbit and venison to stretch the money in those times. I have those memories of rabbit suppers as well. The “Bunny Fries” and the stretching the money times. I am not sure my father ever knew about me eating rabbit to stretch the money. He never went to the bank. He just gave mom his paycheck, and she signed his name and deposited it.
I came home from college my freshman year for Thanksgiving. Of course, we went rabbit hunting. Those were first dogs that I ever owned and were in their prime at five years old.
“Your gram is coming early tomorrow,” dad said, “So we have to leave early too. You college boys sleep all day?”
I had heard my dad use the term “college boy” countless times in my life. It was never a compliment. It referenced guys at work.
“I will be up before you,” I answered.
I could tell that he was happy to see me. It had been almost three months since I had been home. I was one of those kids that went to college without a car. We left at first light and started driving up the hill. He told me about how well the dogs were chasing rabbits, and all the inside politics of the local beagle club. We went to a place where we had always gone, Gordon’s farm.
“You shoot this place out yet this year?” I asked.
“I haven’t hunted yet this season. Waiting for you. Working overtime.”
I had forgotten how much I missed that hound music over the previous few months. The first rabbit circled big, into the pines, and back. It paused along a fence row to look backwards, and I put it in the hunting vest with one shot.
“One circle?” my father yelled, “What are you going to do next, jump shoot them?”
“Let’s do a Bunny Fry Saturday night!” I yelled across the pasture, “But we will need more than one limit of four rabbits!” I heard him slam the action of his Ithaca pump. Dad just loaded his gun after one rabbit!
“I thought you only carried that to balance yourself on logs while crossing the creek!” I yelled. He laughed so hard I could hear it like he was next to me. He shot the next two rabbits. I got another one after that. He shot two more--both were long chases where I had repositioned myself because it never came near me. Both heard me and ran past my father, The Statue. He now had his limit.
He walked over to me. “Want me to put one of your rabbits in my vest?” I winked.
“I want you to learn to be still,” he said. “You should be able to get two more. Stay still, son. Statues shoot rabbits.” That was advice he had given me countless times.
“I will be back,” I said, “I am going off the farm and into the pines.”
“I will be listening to the dogs from the big log below the pasture.
“The woods rabbits ran big, but they also tended to be less tricky. My goal was to get in the pines where I could see down an entire row. The trees were sort of planted in straight lines. I missed one rabbit on two separate instances. Then it holed. The next rabbit fell after one circle. The fourth rabbit ran back to the farm. I walked down to the edge of the pines and stood. I saw dad walking around the groundhog strewn fence line, stomping his feet, to scare the rabbit away from the holes. I saw the dogs get close to dad, and then they were coming back at me. I got still and was looking into an opening when the rabbit emerged slightly to my left, a good follow through, and I got it. I leashed the dogs and headed back.
“Thanks for the assist,” I said.
“You scared rabbits to me twice,” he said. We returned for Turkey, but we were both thinking about rabbits on Saturday night. Saturday came fast. “College boy, get me a rabbit leg!” and “College boy, grab me a beer!” was yelled by all the guys. I hunted one day of deer season, without luck, and went back to school. As it turns out, that would be my dad’s last Thanksgiving. He died the next August. I didn’t know the cancer was back, and neither did he. The doctors thought he had back pain from the arthritis that showed up on the X-rays better than the tumor did. Before he died he said, “Hey college boy, get a job better than mine. Don’t break your back for people that don’t care.”
He died at 64 years of age. He quit school at 16, worked for a year, then enlisted at 17 years of age to go to WWII. He returned to work almost 46 years for the same factory and never got to retire. Thanksgiving, for me, is bittersweet, laced with joyful nostalgia and overwhelming melancholy. He never got to see me finish college or seminary. I am not sure whatever happened to that Dutch oven, but I think I am going to buy a new one. I will invite some friends, cook some rabbits in the yard, and wonder what he would think if he knew I had beagles in the house. I can hear it now.
“College boy, why are them dogs in the house?”
“I get free rent but the bishop could move me and my wife anytime. I can’t move a kennel!”
“Well, I guess all that book learning never did give you common sense.”
Gram would do everything at my aunt’s house, and simply give a few orders to my aunt or her kids. They didn’t get lazy about the meal, but they basically functioned as her hired help. If hired help worked for free. And couldn’t quit and go home. That meal was early, sometimes closer to 11 than noon. After eating a small lunch, she would drive a mile to our house, where she would begin to take over the meal that was already in process.
“What do you need me to do?” gram would ask.
“Nothing,” mom always answered, “You can just relax if you want.”
“Okay,” gram always sat down in the kitchen. “You are doing that all wrong,” she would then stand up again and start whisking or pouring or mixing, or basting, or whatever. She would then stay at our house until we ate at supper time. If you got hungry before supper, there were always pies or other snacks available. She would then eat a small supper with us, before going to her son’s house, where she would eat dessert. That way she visited all three of her kids. I mean, she had a couple other kids, but they all fled the area—a son to Connecticut and a daughter to the suburbs of Philadelphia. When you live in Western Pennsylvania, Philadelphia is like another state. It is the outskirts of New Jersey, as far as we were concerned. The relatives from Philly would come visit the day after Thanksgiving and stay for a few days. My uncle Lester had no places to hunt deer in the suburbs, and his family would stay at my aunt’s house and they would deer hunt with us. The rifle season for deer always began the Monday after Thanksgiving.
“Let’s go hunt rabbits,” dad would say to me, “And avoid all the commotion.” Commotion was the right word too. It wasn’t conflict. Not exactly. Though, dad wasn’t far off in saying, “Only your grandmother can turn three houses on its head in one day.” Most of my memories of Thanksgiving are in the woods, at least after I was old enough to hunt. Rabbit hunting with my dad always seemed to be a time to relax and be centered. My father did not have a career. He had a job. Those were his words. He got paid by the hour, took all the overtime he could get, and dealt with foremen that he referred to by anatomical references rather than their names. At least they were always parts of the anatomy when he talked about them at home, and more often than not at work too. When things were bad enough, he would let loose with all the bad words to his boss.
“Get a career,” he would tell me, “Don’t spend your life at a place that makes you miserable and treats you like equipment. Stick to the books.”
Looking back, it was the sort of misery that brought some satisfaction. There were years that he made more money than some of the management, simply because he worked so much overtime. Sometimes it was 80 hours per week for what seemed like forever. One time, a guy got hurt at work, and it meant he got a couple months of sixteen hour days, seven days a week. A favorite topic was how many more hours he had put in than anyone else in his department.
When we were afield with dogs chasing rabbits, he was a different person. He would laugh when I missed rabbits, and he would cheer when I got them. He wouldn’t even shoot at a rabbit unless I got my limit. On two separate occasions during my childhood, he took rabbits from my vest and put them in his game vest. “Go on,” he said, “Go get another one. We will pretend that I shot this one.” He would sit on a stump and listen to the chase, puffing on his pipe. He told me that he could have shot all kinds of rabbits that he let go. Sure, there were days where I would get my limit and he would shoot one or two. More often than not, however, he would pull down on my game vest and say, “Four rabbits getting heavy? That’s enough for today, your mom cooks them for us, but it ain’t her favorite. I have had enough overtime that she probably won’t cook these ones until you beg for them.” There were plenty of times that we would have rabbit night. My dad would invite buddies over from work, some of them had rabbit dogs too. Rabbit night was always in the backyard, cooking over an open fire. The guys could drink a beer and tell jokes that were not appropriate for their wives to hear. The wives were inside having dessert. A cast iron Dutch oven was utilized as a big frying pan and the rabbits were quartered and cooked in lard or Crisco. The rabbits were breaded and deep fried. The rabbits shot on Thanksgiving were often eaten this way, after deer season was over, but before Christmas. We would have a few other big “Bunny Fries” per year too. It was like a fish fry, but better. My mom breaded the rabbits in the kitchen. I carried them outside and got to cook and serve the rabbits to the guys as. We cooked a few at a time. Then talk, then a few more rabbits into the pan.
“I just bit into a pellet in the hind quarter!” my uncle Tom, dad’s brother, once yelled, “Bobby, you didn’t lead that one enough! You shot a bit behind it.” the guys all got a big laugh.”
“That’s not true,” I took my time grabbing a couple hind legs with tongs from the Dutch oven, so I could think of a response, “My dad told me that he shot that one in the butt on purpose, and I was supposed to serve it to you special.” That got another big laugh.
Dad got burned bad at work once, spent a lot of time in the hospital. He was hospitalized for bladder cancer a few times too, before his bladder was removed. Mom cooked rabbit and venison to stretch the money in those times. I have those memories of rabbit suppers as well. The “Bunny Fries” and the stretching the money times. I am not sure my father ever knew about me eating rabbit to stretch the money. He never went to the bank. He just gave mom his paycheck, and she signed his name and deposited it.
I came home from college my freshman year for Thanksgiving. Of course, we went rabbit hunting. Those were first dogs that I ever owned and were in their prime at five years old.
“Your gram is coming early tomorrow,” dad said, “So we have to leave early too. You college boys sleep all day?”
I had heard my dad use the term “college boy” countless times in my life. It was never a compliment. It referenced guys at work.
“I will be up before you,” I answered.
I could tell that he was happy to see me. It had been almost three months since I had been home. I was one of those kids that went to college without a car. We left at first light and started driving up the hill. He told me about how well the dogs were chasing rabbits, and all the inside politics of the local beagle club. We went to a place where we had always gone, Gordon’s farm.
“You shoot this place out yet this year?” I asked.
“I haven’t hunted yet this season. Waiting for you. Working overtime.”
I had forgotten how much I missed that hound music over the previous few months. The first rabbit circled big, into the pines, and back. It paused along a fence row to look backwards, and I put it in the hunting vest with one shot.
“One circle?” my father yelled, “What are you going to do next, jump shoot them?”
“Let’s do a Bunny Fry Saturday night!” I yelled across the pasture, “But we will need more than one limit of four rabbits!” I heard him slam the action of his Ithaca pump. Dad just loaded his gun after one rabbit!
“I thought you only carried that to balance yourself on logs while crossing the creek!” I yelled. He laughed so hard I could hear it like he was next to me. He shot the next two rabbits. I got another one after that. He shot two more--both were long chases where I had repositioned myself because it never came near me. Both heard me and ran past my father, The Statue. He now had his limit.
He walked over to me. “Want me to put one of your rabbits in my vest?” I winked.
“I want you to learn to be still,” he said. “You should be able to get two more. Stay still, son. Statues shoot rabbits.” That was advice he had given me countless times.
“I will be back,” I said, “I am going off the farm and into the pines.”
“I will be listening to the dogs from the big log below the pasture.
“The woods rabbits ran big, but they also tended to be less tricky. My goal was to get in the pines where I could see down an entire row. The trees were sort of planted in straight lines. I missed one rabbit on two separate instances. Then it holed. The next rabbit fell after one circle. The fourth rabbit ran back to the farm. I walked down to the edge of the pines and stood. I saw dad walking around the groundhog strewn fence line, stomping his feet, to scare the rabbit away from the holes. I saw the dogs get close to dad, and then they were coming back at me. I got still and was looking into an opening when the rabbit emerged slightly to my left, a good follow through, and I got it. I leashed the dogs and headed back.
“Thanks for the assist,” I said.
“You scared rabbits to me twice,” he said. We returned for Turkey, but we were both thinking about rabbits on Saturday night. Saturday came fast. “College boy, get me a rabbit leg!” and “College boy, grab me a beer!” was yelled by all the guys. I hunted one day of deer season, without luck, and went back to school. As it turns out, that would be my dad’s last Thanksgiving. He died the next August. I didn’t know the cancer was back, and neither did he. The doctors thought he had back pain from the arthritis that showed up on the X-rays better than the tumor did. Before he died he said, “Hey college boy, get a job better than mine. Don’t break your back for people that don’t care.”
He died at 64 years of age. He quit school at 16, worked for a year, then enlisted at 17 years of age to go to WWII. He returned to work almost 46 years for the same factory and never got to retire. Thanksgiving, for me, is bittersweet, laced with joyful nostalgia and overwhelming melancholy. He never got to see me finish college or seminary. I am not sure whatever happened to that Dutch oven, but I think I am going to buy a new one. I will invite some friends, cook some rabbits in the yard, and wonder what he would think if he knew I had beagles in the house. I can hear it now.
“College boy, why are them dogs in the house?”
“I get free rent but the bishop could move me and my wife anytime. I can’t move a kennel!”
“Well, I guess all that book learning never did give you common sense.”
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