Gathered around the dining room table, my family would sit down to eat. Usually, the turkey had been won at the Oglebay turkey shoot held at the old carriage barn. One did not shoot turkeys, but targets and the winner would get a turkey. Luckily, my sister Melissa was a good shot and we were able to take home the bird, but one year the prize was a radio....how does one cook a radio?
Because there were nine children, the three or four youngest sat at the "kids" table while the rest of us crowded around the main table. There was always a glass (Fostoria or Hazel Atlas?) turkey that was used in the center piece and of course, all of our school-made decorations lined the mantle. This is the same mantle shown in the movie "Doughboy" as the mother is shown doing situp.
I don't remember any ritual of saying what we were thankful for, but I do remember reading Thanksgiving poems at the table.
In later years, after we "bought the farm" (literally) in Ritchie County, we would go to the farm for the holiday. This was a tree farm of several hundred acres with no animals (except in summer when we might have a horse, some chickens, or a lamb). My dad, brothers and various boyfriends or neighbors were invited to go along to hunt. Game was thick on the farm and you could almost close your eyes and pull the trigger and something would fall. We never failed to get deer and my dad used the hides to have gun cases, vests, etc made. Our freezer abounded with venison....to this day, I can't stand the taste of it. When I lived in New Zealand, I was amazed to find that they farmed deer and knew how to make venison edible!
Huge heaters in each room and free natural gas from the wells on the farm kept us very warm after a snowy hunt. I vaguely remember going bow hunting with my dad...tracking them in the snow. But when it came to killing them, I just couldn't bear the thought of killing something so beautiful and was more than a little hesitant...now crows or snakes....yes, no need to share the planet with them, but Bambi?
Well, so much for my memories....how about you? How did your family celebrate?
