Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday for a very long time. There was no frenzy like at Christmas, just family and good food. When I was a teenager still in school, our holiday was Thursday and Friday. Now most schools enjoy an entire week only to make it up by going to school longer in the spring.

When I was young, a holiday from school meant that I was available for work, which most of the time was sawing and splitting wood.  I didn't mind although the work was hard.  I remember one holiday well because we made syrup. Dad and his brother, my uncle Perry, had raised cane and made syrup when they lived in Arkansas, and they continued that in Louisiana..  I was attending school and too small to be of use around the syrup mill until this one Thanksgiving.  We cut the cane and hauled it to the mill, got the juice from the cane and cooked it to convert it to syrup.  Regulating the heat and steady skimming was vital to making good syrup, and dad was a master at it.

When mom was still living, our related families came to our home for  Thanksgiving.  Our families became scattered and the children became adults with their own children.  This will be our first Thanksgiving without daughter Jessica.  She is spending the day in North Carolina with Mark and Julie and their two kids, Lily and Oliver.