Memories of Thanksgiving

Ok Vic, I read your blog and started recalling memories of my own regarding the Thanksgivings I remember as a child.

I grew up as a young child living with my Grandparents in a small backwoods little town in UpState New York. It was a small farming community and it seemed that in some way everyone was related. Our small town had one little store in it. It was a cross between a grocery store and a hardware store. By groceries I mean the store sold the essentials like flour, salt sugar ect. The store was maybe the size many peoples living rooms, by todays standards.

As a farming community the towns people pretty well raised whatever food they ate. If it wasn't raised then it was hunted. That is what I remember about Thanksgiving as a child. All of the men,My Grandfather and Uncles would all go hunting the day before Thanksgiving. Whatever they managed to get was used for the Thanksgiving meal. My Grandmother was such a fantastic cook. I learned so much from her as a child. Lol, she also taught me how to fish.  No fancy rods and reals, stick and string was our method.

No matter the bounty, Pheasant, duck, goose, wild turkey. A  goat from over by Jim's, My Grandfathers and Uncles alway came home with something. I still recall vague memories of the use of wax or something to aid in the removal of the feathers my Grandmother and I would pluck.  I blogged before regarding growing potatoes so thats a given that we always had an abundance of mashed potatoes. Real minced meat pies made with Venison was a specialty of my Grandmothers. I would love to have one of those pies today. Pumpkin Bread and pumpkin pie. If we didn't have pumpkin then we had zuchinni. The way my Grandmother baked no one coud tell the difference between the 2. I could because the Zuchinni pie and bread wasn't orange but thats just because I was smarter. That's what my Grandma would tell me anyway.

What made Thanksgiving really mean something though was for everyone to be together.I wasn't with my family at that age due to some certain circumstances that weren't right in a childs life but looking back I am grateful and thankful to this day that I had my Grandparents and the great memories that I will cherish forever.

(Special note-I have never eaten goat and no goats were harmed durring these recollections)