Most of my memories of Thanksgiving tend toward the generic.
I remember last year in Guatemala and I remember 1974 in Columbus, Ohio. More generically pleasant memories are the dozen or so years when Nicole, Pauline, Virgile and I went to the Thanksgiving buffet at the wonderful Twin Palms restaurant in Pasadena, California.
Last year was nice because we got to spend a week withPauline, her husband Johnathan and our six grandchildren.
“Here’s the story of a lovely lady …”
Almost. Johnathan came to the marriage with three boys of his own, but Pauline had two girls and one boy.
It really is such a pleasure to spend time with them, and we were going to see them this year for Christmas in Virginia until the coronavirus killed reasons to travel.
As for 1974, it stands out for a number of reasons. It was our biggest Thanksgiving, with 17 people at the two tables.Our seven-member family, my uncle’s six-member family, my grandparents, my cousin Marti’s husband and my fiancee.
It was my first of a few Thanksgivings with Leslie, and it was an iconic one in Washington Redskins, er, Football Team history. They were beating the Dallas Cowboys and they had knocked Roger Staubach out of the game, looking like sure winners until a nobody named Clint Longley threw a 50-yard touchdown pass to Drew Pearson with less than a minute to play.
Maybe the most vivid football memory I have, with the possible exception of John Riggins’ touchdown run to win Super Bowl XVII.
The other memory hit a lot closer to home. When we left to return home to Virginia — a longer drive in those days when not all the interstates had been completed — it had already started snowing. In those days, the trip took 8-9 hours. We crossed from the Ohio Turnpike onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the snow was coming down faster and heavier.
In those days, you got off the turnpike at Breezewood if you were heading down to Washington, D.C., and points south. I don’t remember why we stopped there. Maybe we needed gas for the car or maybe we were just hungry. Whatever the reason, our car was a two-year-old Pinto without snow tires, and we got stuck in a snowdrift.
I think it was around midnight by then, and we weren’t going to be able to get our car pulled out. We walked to the nearest motel and found out all the motels in the “Town of Motels” were full. The Holiday Inn was allowing people to sit — or sleep — on its hallway floors overnight.
We got home the next day, no worse for the wear, and a little more than five years later, we were married, separated and done.
It’s odd, though. We were together for five more Thanksgivings and I remember nothing about any of them.
All of my recent memories are good ones.